Q Toon: Conditional Tense

English-speaking people have been using "they, them, their" to represent singular nouns for untold eons: as in, "Anyone who brings their brother or sister on the field trip must sit next to them."

For many of those eons, schoolteachers would insist on replacing those pronouns with the sexist "Anyone who brings his brother or sister on the field trip must sit next to him." More enlightened schoolteachers insisted on the awkward "Anyone who brings his or her brother or sister on the field trip must sit next to him or her."

Or, even better, "Don't bring your siblings."

Now there are people, including schoolchildren, who identify as "non-binary" and therefore don't feel that they are either "he" or "she." The current terms of preference are "they, them, their"; and while most of us are quite used to "they, them, their" referring to a hypothetical, generic individual, talking about a specific non-binary individual presents a new challenge.

"Ashley says they are feeling better," or "Ashley says they is feeling better"?

English is not the only language confronting the issue of modern gender identity. Spanish has always used masculine nouns and adjectives for groups and generic people, but "Latino" and "Latina," for example, are getting replace by "Latinx" (pronounced la-TEE-nex). I assume any adjectives follow suit: unx niñx rubix gordx. I have no idea if they've figured out an x-substitute for la and el.

Romance language speakers ought to be used to separating the concepts of gender and sex — at least those who have watched the Muppets. In French, "frog" is a feminine noun and "pig" is a masculine noun; yet little children are still not confused by Kermit la Grenouille and Mlle. le Porc. For that matter, if Elizabeth Warren were to win our presidential election next year, Spanish-speaking people would address her as Señora el Presidente.

And if a woman ever became Pope, she'd be El Papa, because la papa is "the potato."

But to return to English and the field trip sentence above, we do have singular pronoun alternatives to "he, him, his" and "she, her, her." You wouldn't refer to a person as "it, it, its," but one could use "one, one, one's": "Anyone who brings one's brother or sister on the field trip must sit next to one."

Naaah. That doesn't work, after all.

Especially if one's sibling is two-spirited.