“… or if they’re a bully”

[Odessa Dawn]

Please see attached. Shouldn’t it be “they are bullies”?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

But you're right to notice that there's no noun/pronoun agreement. If the writer had said children instead of child, then the noun and pronoun would agree.

Most English speakers and writers don't care whether they agree or not.

 

[bubbha]

This is an example of the "singular they", which is an example of innovation (or evolution) of the English language to cope with the fact that there is no genderless third-person singular pronoun for use with people.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

This is an example of the "singular they", which is an example of innovation (or evolution) of the English language to cope with the fact that there is no genderless third-person singular pronoun for use with people.

The difference is that American grammar books accept "you" as both singular and plural but don't (yet) accept "they" as both singular and plural. At least not any that I've seen. If you know of one, I'd love to hear about it.

But again, most Americans don't care.

 

[Roman55]

This subject comes up regularly and, if I'm not mistaken, Barb D has reminded us on more than one occasion that this use of they is nothing new.

The first part of the usage note here attests to that. The last part of that same usage note is another matter.

 

[GoesStation]

What were Oxford's editors thinking when they decided to forego marking quoted text in usage notes? It's very hard to parse something like the following:

Sentences such as ask a friend if they could help are still criticized for being ungrammatical.

 

[jutfrank]

What were Oxford's editors thinking when they decided to forego marking quoted text in usage notes?

Just another of the many gripes I have with them. I could go on and on. A poor dictionary, in my opinion. Rant over.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

This subject comes up regularly and, if I'm not mistaken, Barb D has reminded us on more than one occasion that this use of they is nothing new.

The first part of the usage note here attests to that. The last part of that same usage note is another matter.

No, it's not. Folks have been arguing about it since the invention of arguing.

 

[GoesStation]

Just another of the many gripes I have with them. I could go on and on. A poor dictionary, in my opinion. Rant over.

The absence of quote demarcation could be a presentation issue where the Web view drops formatting present in the data. Do they follow the same ill-conceived practice in print editions?

 

[jutfrank]

The absence of quote demarcation could be a presentation issue where the Web view drops formatting present in the data. Do they follow the same ill-conceived practice in print editions?

I'm not completely sure, to be honest. I don't have a copy here at home and I can't visualise it. I'm quite confident they don't, though.