Why is “They” a common alternative pronoun to he/she, considering it works for a single individual in some contexts, but in others it sounds like multiple people. “They’re watching a movie” or “they went to a concert” for example.
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“They” has been used for centuries in both single-person and plural contexts – the reason is just that English lacks any other singular third-person pronoun, aside from “it,” which we don’t use for people. They, used for a single person, was once criticized for this single-person use (I’m talking hundreds of years ago), but has since become an accepted singular pronoun when gender is unknown, unstated, or when the speaker prefers it.
Like in the sentence “When speaking to an elder, treat *them* with respect.” It’s clearly a singular person (an elder), but the usage isn’t limited to a male or female elder.
English is weird like that – we also don’t have a plural second-person pronoun. *You* can mean one person, “Would you like to come have dinner?” or to multiple people “Good evening Johnsons, will you please follow me.” We used to use *thou* for singular and *you* for plural (or a more respectful alternative to thou), but it’s died out. And some dialects get around it by using terms like “y’all” or “youse” for the plural, but the fact is, English doesn’t have a lot of options when it comes to singular/plural pronouns!
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