You Know What They Say
I have learned at last after seven decades just exactly who “they” is/are. It turns out, it’s whoever says so. By saying so, they are “They.”
Forever,“They” was a monolithic shadow cabinet — a vague, authoritative body of elders who issued decrees on everything from linen colors to the optimal number of bites one should take of a cocktail shrimp.
“They say it’s going to be a cold winter,” we’d whisper, looking toward the horizon, as if a tribunal of hooded grammarians were currently voting on revisions to the “Farmer’s Almanac.”
But the new intelligentsia has staged a coup. The collective “They” has been dismantled, partitioned, and redistributed. “They” is no longer a shadowy them; “They” is a very specific ze.
The Great Pronominal Expansion
In the salons of the neo-literati, the linguistic landscape has moved beyond the mere singular “they” — which is now considered practically quaint, the “Live, Laugh, Love” of gender neutrality. We have entered the era of the “Bespoke Pronominal Suite.”
The absurdity is not in the intent, but in the athletic vigor of the morphology. Consider the current hierarchy of the “New They”:
The Classic Singular: The gateway pronoun. Functional, sleek, and slightly confusing to aunts at Thanksgiving.
The X-Factor (Xe/Xem/Xir[1]): For those who find the English alphabet too terrestrial. It suggests a certain celestial or perhaps “high-end tech startup” energy.
The Noun-Adjacent: One encounters “Them” whose pronouns were have been creatively anointed, perhaps in one recent case of Leaf/Leafness, out of shame for being made of meat.
My research turned up the X-Factor pronouns and I was riveted. As part of the modern “Bespoke Pronominal Suite,” these identities are characterized by the following:
Atmospheric Origin: These pronouns are specifically for individuals who find the standard English alphabet to be “too terrestrial”.
Aesthetic Energy: The use of the “X” variants suggests a “celestial” quality or the sleek, forward-looking energy of a “high-end tech startup”.
Linguistic Status: Within the new hierarchy, using these terms moves the speaker beyond the quaint singular “they.”
The Self-Appointed Authority
The brilliance of the phrase “You Know What They Say” is that it has finally become literal. In the past, if “They” said you shouldn’t swim for thirty minutes after eating, you obeyed out of a sense of cosmic superstition.
“They” was a safety net of anonymity. “They” were the people who decided that eggs were bad for you on Tuesday and a superfood by Friday. But in the hands of the modern intelligentsia, “They” has been weaponized into a singular, devastatingly specific entity.
The Pronominal Mob of One
The beauty of this new “They” is that it allows a single human being to carry the weight of an entire civilization. When “They” enters a room, “They” does not simply walk; “They” manifests as a one-person consensus.
We have reached a point where “They” is both the subject of the sentence and a tiny, private riot. If you ask, “Where are They?” you could be looking for the entire French Parliament, or just a person named River who is currently in the bathroom.
“Are They in there?” “They is.” “Then they are alone?” “They is never alone, for They is Them.”
Esoteric enough for you? The absurdity has reached its zenith not because we’ve run out of words, but because we’ve made one word do too much heavy lifting.
We have achieved a linguistic miracle: the Plurality of One. They is now the ultimate linguistic shapeshifter — a pronoun that allows you to be an individual while maintaining the structural integrity of a small committee.
It turns out “They” isn’t a shadowy group of elites after all. “They” is just a person in a linen jumpsuit who has decided that grammar is purely optional.
You know what They say: They is as They does, and if They says They is Them, then they are those whom we must now call They.
