There's nothing painful about this to anyone who hasn't been conscripted into the culture wars.
But it was the culture war that resulted in this change to the language. Previous to the war, singular 'they' was to be avoided due to the ambiguity it introduces.
It's not a culture war when attitudes towards gender evolve, just like it wasn't a culture war that some people are gay.
It's not a culture war until there's two sides, until a segment of the population throws a hissyfit because new ideas make them uncomfortable.
I have no problem with people's attitudes or culture changing in a positive direction. However, I dislike this business of introducing a change into the language in a way that reduces its expressiveness and clarity. Usage of singular 'they' in contexts where more specific pronouns were available was unusual until very recently. Why the change? I don't think it's unfair characterize this as an offensive move, waged by one side in a 'culture war', that was done without regard to collateral damage.
> Usage of singular 'they' in contexts where more specific pronouns were available was unusual until very recently
It was used whenever gender was ambiguous or needed to be protected. Now with people openly identifying as non-binary, there is not a more specific pronoun, that person doesn't consider themselves that gender. You would be referring to them as something that is not what they want to be called, and is not what their social circle refers to them as. It's confusing, especially if you know what to call them but choose not to because you're offended.
> I don't think it's unfair characterize this as an offensive move, waged by one side in a 'culture war', that was done without regard to collateral damage
I would wager, based on the disproportionate and melodramatic language, this has never actually affected you. But you are likely consuming media that tells you everyone is going to draw and quarter you if you mess up a pronoun. This is not the case. Trans people just move on, they're used to it. It literally happens all the time.
>But you are likely consuming media that tells you everyone is going to draw and quarter you if you mess up a pronoun. This is not the case. .
You can say that because you live in a privileged country where compelled speech is illegal.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/20062017-canada-law-makes-it-i...
>Trans people just move on, they're used to it. It literally happens all the time
Or they try to cancel you and get you fired
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/15/i-was-fired...
https://www.newsweek.com/christian-teacher-says-she-was-fire...
What ambiguity? We know it's a human, the human has a name. We do not know their gender or sex, both are not relevant. They works perfectly.
This seems like a you problem...
"X and Y were in the garden, Y noticed the ripe tomatoes as they went into the greenhouse". Is X in the greenhouse?
I'm way woker than the average person but I have to admit encountering a singular 'they' breaks my concentration in a distracting way - there's definitely possible ambiguity.
People really ought to read redacted documents to get an idea for how people write with clarity when gender and even number of parties is unknown.
But I'm confused by your sentence regardless of the gender terms. Did they notice the tomatoes in the Garden or in the greenhouse? This is just ambiguous wording in general.
- These are two different sentences, but they're separated with a comma. It should be a period, as it makes no grammatical sense with a comma unless you're trying to make it intentionally confusing.
- You would write "They both went into the greenhouse" if they both entered, or you would write "Y entered the greenhouse and noticed the ripe tomatoes."
- "Before entering the greenhouse, "Y"/"they both" noticed the ripe tomatoes in the Garden."
They also applies to objects (like it does), so here it could be the tomatoes that are going into the greenhouse.