'They' Is Irritating Me Immensely

[barry1010]

Police appeal for missing person shows a photo of a 25 year old 'manly' man named Alec. Police say they need to know that 'they' are okay.

One man is missing. Stop mangling language 😡

[barry1010]

DDIL, what do you call your sister/brother's offspring when referring to that offspring to others? 

[DDIL]

Naomi, I feel you are attempting to goad me.

I call my Aunt batty because quite frankly she is, unless you call wandering around her village with her knickers on her trousers, talking to people who are not there and on occasion giving rather strange gifts.

I can assure you it is a term of endearment.

[DDIL]

Sorry Barry,

Your question to me does not really make any sense, it is rather mangled if you will forgive the expression.

 

[barry1010]

You referred to your relative as your nephew.  What word would you use in its place?  Is that straightforward enough?

[barry1010]

DDIL, I have my much loved relative living with me because of his dementia.  I consider your 'batty' reference very offensive.  If Great Aunt is merely eccentric, that is a much kinder term.

[naomi24]

Goad you?  Not at all, DDIL.  It was merely an observation.

[New Judge]

...if you don't like how other people use pronouns then you can sit in a corner and cry about it.

You don’t sit in the corner and cry about it. You simply don’t get involved with it.

I really don’t understand this business with pronouns. If the subject of the sentence is present (or is in receipt of written correspondence) there’s only one pronoun necessary: the second person, “you”. If the subject isn’t present or correspondence is addressed to somebody else, it is none of his or her concern. If somebody spoke about me using the wrong pronoun it wouldn’t trouble me in the slightest. I wouldn't dream of insisting any particular pronouns were used when referring to me. 

I first came across this about six or seven years ago, when I did some work for a large telecommunications company. I received e-mails from one of their employees and under his name at the bottom was "preferred pronouns: he/him/his." When I met him I asked him what it was all about. "Absolute cobblers (actually a little stronger than that, but which would not pass AB's decency filters)" he said. "There's an edict that we've all got to supply that gen with all our communications."

"Why"

"Not a clue."

And I think that about sums it up.