LoL "he or she" replaced "they". It hasn't been used that way. Go ahead and give me your oldest sentence with they and watch me destroy it. Give it a shot.
You need to take your argument with Webster's or APA. Let them know that you are the authority on the English language.
Not at all. Webster's isn't saying it's right, Webster's is just saying that some morons are doing it. If enough people started referring to themselves as "dolphin-self", Webster would put that stupidity in the dictionary too. I'm satisfied with simply proving you can't debate the point and explain it yourself in your own words. Even your appeal to authority logical fallacies failed.
The first three are singular, so I accept your concession that "they" can be singular and acknowledge that you still don't like to use it on non-binary people.
Not as much as the brief terrifying moment reality rolls right over the modern left. Incompetents and morons don't scare me.
The first 3 aren't singular. They're a single choice among multiple options. That makes it plural. The only way "them" works is if two "thems" are an option.
You want me to google it for you? https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they
So the APA re-wrote English this year to accommodate the mentally ill. This guidance is new to the 7th edition.
Let's go through it: This one the dictionary asserts it is singular. Their example could be considered plural though. This one they call it singular again and it clearly refers to one person. Again this example involves "they" being used on clearly a single individual whose gender is being concealed. These examples have nothing to do with non-binary people directly, but show there was a precedent for the singular use of the word "they."
A SINGULAR what? INDEFINITE PRONOUN. MULTIPLE OPTIONS. Who was the person that answered the phone? One of multiple possible people. Who was the student that was disciplined? One of multiple possible people. THEY is only acceptable as a pronoun for a singular entity WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHO IT IS.
Not exactly. The person could have had a very distinct voice on the phone, but it may be unclear from their voice (and maybe even their clothed appearance) whether they are male or female. So it's not just ambiguity about who it is, but also ambiguity about the gender. It's also sometimes used when the gender is being downplayed - when it is being asserted that gender doesn't matter in the context or matters and is being obscured as in the 3c example from the dictionary. And then it's just easier to say than "he or she"... one syllable vs three. Languages are dynamic and do change over time, but using "they" as singular is not itself very new. Using "they" for non-binary is new though.
