Well, yes, but there is standarised English.
Really, that sounds odd to me when referring to an individual.
Blockquote
- third person plural singular Used to refer to a person of unspecified gender.
‘ask a friend if they could help’
That sounds OK because friend is gender neutral. Did you mean that in the first example too?
Yes, indeed. That kind of situation, where the gender was unknown, the person was hypothetical, etc.
2 Likes
“They is a waitress.”
Stop studying Alabama and passing on reports claiming you understand the human race. I mean species.
Perhaps this whole cultural thing is a good time to accept english is messy and rewrite the rules. Lets do to English what metric did to math. You are and i am is pretty dumb it seems. Im sure we can streamline a bit.
But I am in that camp of calling a single known person they or them wrong. Or at least not very consistent. Why not use it? Because they think themself better than an animal is why 
We could have have wonderful times going around in circles on this one
Not every he or she is a friend. In fact, many arent. Maybe someone would be better. Where i grew up it was normal before the gender stigmas started to use someone. “Ask somone if they can help”. Dammit!
Let’s just go with “Ask ones if they can help.”
That should satisfy everyone.
I’ve had a few taiwanese question me on my usage of they. I questioned them on their english teacher. I am very surprised to hear there are actual native english speakers confused by the use of it too. Maybe it’s not used in america?
It’s kind of a typical hyper-grammatical thing you might expect to encounter here sometimes. I’m sure it’s as common in America as anywhere else.
Ya its used throughout north america. But many do think it is strictly plural in use. To be fair, not everyone is teaching the language so it isnt the most important aspect of their language. I find many people have a lot of misunderstanding(s?) In their native tongue. Hence making a more logical language without exceptions seems like a useful thing.
I started noticing a lot of issues with english once i started learning chinese. The he/she/it one was one of the first things.
-
In this case I was thinking of specimens in England, not Alabama.
-
We have way more understanding of you than vice-versa, from your heads down to your “probable” bits. So remember your place in the universe, m’kay?
You are and i am is pretty dumb it seems. Im sure we can streamline a bit.
We be able to, but you be and I be besn’t able to make everyone happy, it seems. 
1 Like