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Chris Fox's avatar

I remember when it began to annoy me, people would talk about government protections from frauds and dangers, "They wouldn't let that happen, would they?"

Who is "they" here?, I would ask. Blank look. "You know, uh, ..."

I learned Russian when I was 13 and I remember drawing a little grid, two columns, singular and plural, three rows, 1st, 2nd, 3rd person. I did the same later for Spanish, German, Italian, etc. Doesn't work in Asian languages like the one I speak here. English was missing one, taken by "y'all" in the south ... that's wrong, "you" is already formal/plural, it's "thou" that's missing, equivalent to ты, du, tu, tous ... the familiar/singular.

Then I noticed the "gender neutral" they. And immediately stopped using it, which didn't matter back then but now the generic "he" is regarded as putting women in leg irons.

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