Application essays and the singular "they"
Here I am writing various application essays. They're getting real irritating and repetitive and I'm fighting back temptation to throw in random tangents just to make the essays more interesting, even though I know perfectly well that the readers are all different and it's not only okay but a good idea to simply tailor the same essay to each institution. Sigh. At least I'm resisting for now.
A recent issue I've had is regarding the singular "they." I completely approve of English having a gender-neutral singular pronoun. And for several years now, "they" has worked perfectly well for me. It certainly works in regular speech. However, in formal writing, the issue of verb form agreement comes up and has recently thrown me through a loop.
Consider the verb forms:
first person, singular: I am
first person, plural: we are
second person, both: you are
third person, singular: he/she is
third person, plural: they are
"He are" is not acceptable, nor is "they is." However, if you're in the middle of writing a paragraph and you go from gender-neutral to gender-specific, suddenly the verb tense changes? That strikes me as peculiar.
So, is the future of the English language, removing the the third-person, gender-specific singular, and just having a single third-person, gender-neutral, singular-and-plural pronoun "they"?
Yes, no, maybe?
Anyway, these are the thoughts that are currently helping me procrastinate from writing my fifth set of essays. Aargh.
A recent issue I've had is regarding the singular "they." I completely approve of English having a gender-neutral singular pronoun. And for several years now, "they" has worked perfectly well for me. It certainly works in regular speech. However, in formal writing, the issue of verb form agreement comes up and has recently thrown me through a loop.
Consider the verb forms:
first person, singular: I am
first person, plural: we are
second person, both: you are
third person, singular: he/she is
third person, plural: they are
"He are" is not acceptable, nor is "they is." However, if you're in the middle of writing a paragraph and you go from gender-neutral to gender-specific, suddenly the verb tense changes? That strikes me as peculiar.
So, is the future of the English language, removing the the third-person, gender-specific singular, and just having a single third-person, gender-neutral, singular-and-plural pronoun "they"?
Yes, no, maybe?
Anyway, these are the thoughts that are currently helping me procrastinate from writing my fifth set of essays. Aargh.