• Cethin@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    6 months ago

    Yeah dude, that Shakespeare guy didn’t know English at all when he used the singular they! We should go tell him! Oh, that was over 400 years ago, and wasn’t even the originator of it? Oh no. The language has been ruined for so long!

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        Dude, Shakespeare is basically the epitome of English writing.

        If your argument is that it’s new, well you’re fucking wrong because one of the most renowned writers of English used it centuries ago, as well as some translations of the Bible and other things.

        If your argument is that grammar changes well then I’m sorry you’re several centuries behind on this development. This one isn’t new, however much of how we speak and write today is significantly newer. Notice no “thou art” or anything like that in either of our comments.

        https://www.englishgratis.com/1/wikibooks/english/singularthey.htm

        There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend — Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3, 1594

        'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear the speech. — Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3, 1600–1602

        So lyke wyse shall my hevenly father do vnto you except ye forgeve with youre hertes eache one to his brother their treaspases. — Tyndale’s Bible, 1526

        All of these are centuries old, and each of them know the gender of whom they speak of. You are incorrect. Please update your knowledge and don’t correct someone for something you didn’t at least look up.