Congratulations to 'They'!

We're still on the theme of headlines, and the word of the year has been announced with a delightful headline from Voice of America: 'They' Wins as Linguists' Word of the Year  "Its usage has been a source of contention since the times of Shakespeare and Chaucer — both of whom, for your Grade 3 teacher’s information, used “they” to refer to a single person on occasion. Puritanical grammar nerds have been sticklers, however, for pairing singular subjects (for example, “the suspect”) with singular pronouns (“he” or “she”) — even when the person’s gender is not known. The rationale is that “they” should only refer to multiple persons, not just one. So traditionalists would rather see this: “Everyone took his or her chances on the roads that day.” Than this: “Everyone took their chances on the roads that day.” That’s started to change, slowly: The Washington Post, for example, changed its style guide last year to accept a singular “they.” But this kind of “they” got a thumbs up from some of the nerdiest word nerds Friday evening, when an overwhelming majority of the American Dialect Society cast their annual words of the year ballots for:  “they: gender-neutral singular pronoun for a known person, particularly as a nonbinary identifier.” Congratulations to "They"! On to our pictures of the day:  The Ontario Regional Lily Society has its flower show at the Royal Botanical Gardens atrium each year.  The natural light in the atrium and the tall open space showcase the flower colours and forms beautifully.  I stopped in the perennial gardens and the conservatory, and found a cornucopia of flowers and model trains. They seem to be together a lot.