时代周刊:“他们”一词的新用法（在线收听）

How they Won

“他们”一词是如何胜出的？

It is a well-known truth among linguists that the grammatical “mistakes” of one era

在语言学家中间，有一个众所周知的事实：在一个时代被认为是语法“错误”的用法

often have a way of being proved perfectly correct by the next.

到了下一个时代常常会被证明是完全正确的用法。

In a new book, linguistics scholar Dennis Baron argues that

专攻语言学的学者丹尼斯·巴伦就在他的新作中指出，

the tide has turned for the most controversial pronoun around: the singular they.

最具争议的代词——单数形式的“他/她/它们”已经时来运转了。

For centuries, pundits have observed that English is missing a gender- neutral, third-person pronoun

几百年来，专家们注意到，英语中缺少一个在不知道性别

that could be used in place of he or she when gender is unknown or irrelevant.

或不涉及性别的情况下指代第三人称的他或她时使用的无关性别的三人称代词。

People have tried to fill this gap with many words that didn’t fit,

人们尝试过很多次用其他词来填补这一空白，

like generic he, which isn’t actually generic,

比如表泛指的“他”，事实上也算不上泛指，

and hundreds of made-up pronouns like thon (a combination of that and one) that never took off.

还有一个又一个新造的代词，比如从未流行起来的“那一个”（“那个”和“一个”的组合），结果均为奏效。

The answer, Baron explains in What’s Your Pronoun?: Beyond He & She, has always been the singular they.

巴伦在（新作）《他她之外，你用什么代词？》一书中指出，答案一直都在那里，它就是单数形式的“他们”。

Though grammarians may insist that it be used only as a plural,

尽管语法学家可能会坚持认为，“他们”只能作复数代词使用，

the masses regularly use it in a singular way, as in “Did they leave a message?”

但民众经常都在将其用作单数，如“他们留什么话了没有？”

In recent years, it’s gained ground, thanks to the LGBTQ community,

近年来，因为LGBTQ群体的推动，这一用法已经普及开来，

which has embraced it as a way to refer to non binary people who identify as neither men nor women.

该群体将其用作了指代认为自己非男亦非女的非二元性别人群的一种方式。

And that helped inspire influential authorities like copy editors to put down their red pens.

他们的这一做法鼓舞了文案编辑等有一定影响力的权威机构，使他们放下自己手中的红笔。