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So I read a few posts over at IPS and I saw that SO (significant other) is referenced as "they". For example here the author of the accepted answer said that "they told them to ..." and with "they" referencing to the SO. Question: Why is SO referenced as they and not as he/she ? What rule causes this ? Or maybe I m completely misunderstanding the whole situation ?

L4B0MB4
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  • There are two questions here that need to be separated: (1) why would one use they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, and (2) why would one need to use a gender-neutral form at all to refer to one's own SO. Only (2) is worth posing as a new question, given that (1) has already received a great deal of attention. – jsw29 Jul 06 '18 at 18:37

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It's becoming more common in English to use "they" and "their" to refer to singular people, when the person doesn't want to speculate on sex (I could have used "they" for "the person" right there, if I subscribed to this theory. :) ) This has been the case in English for a long time, but anecdotally, it seems to be an increasing usage.

Also, in the last few years, it's become acceptable in some societies to be of non-binary gender. Such people often prefer to be referred to as "they" instead of by "he" or "she", which refer to a binary sex.

It would be unusual to refer to one's spouse as a "they" since the sex would normally be known, but if the author wanted to be vague (perhaps it's a same-sex couple that doesn't want to broadcast that fact), or if the author's partner is of non-binary sex, it wouldn't be out of the question to use "they" to refer to the person. It could also be a sloppy usage, without any particular intent.

Jim MacKenzie
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  • In addition to the possible explanations offered in the last paragraph, it may be that, by using they for one's own SO in answering a question on the Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange, the writer was trying to convey that the gender of the SO that is referred to in the example is not relevant to the point of the example, and that the substance of the answer thus applies to all combination of genders. – jsw29 Jul 06 '18 at 18:27
  • @jsw29 Fair point! – Jim MacKenzie Jul 06 '18 at 18:50