"They're in the garage, I think"
is common to hear, just as
"He's in the garage, I think"
Many will mix between the "he/she" and "they" in the same conversation. Quite often referring to their closest friends and family rather than pointed attempt to misuse a pronoun.
> Many will mix between the "he/she" and "they" in the same conversation.
That does not match my observed reality at all. All natural languages I know are gendered the same way English is.
Singular "they" is already exceedingly uncommon by itself; and across all the languages, and in my whole life-time, never once I or a conversation partner used "they" instead of the specialised pronoun, or mixed in a conversation, when the gender of the person in question is explicitly known as GP wrote. The same is true for all written material I read in my whole life.
so what, we need to read minds? why? for the 0.01% of people who demand everyone else change? how about we forget all this and stick to the defaults. if YOU have a specific pronoun then you can ask but we dont need to rewrite posts and content at all
English speech varies. Even across the UK there are dozens of regional accents and dialects. Now add the many regional variations across the USA and other world Englishes. All with their own traits and habits, some more widespread than others. A deep rabbit hole with many forks then.
Common enough that I would not think it the slightest bit unnatural on hearing, or give it a second thought. I wouldn't give it a second thought reading it in a natural conversation in a book - not just in intentionally neutral business or net writing, so that's not going to be memorable. It's not an idiom I'd single out as localised to any one group or region. It would be memorable and feel odd reading if it were all that way in a novel's quoted conversation, or nearly all names with few pronouns like some telesales scripts seem to encourage.
Not as common as he/she certainly, but I dunno 1:4 or 1:8 or something. I couldn't say what proportion is names not pronouns either. FWIW My people skew international, educated, Scots and perhaps city in a part of the UK that's well north of London.
I am born and raised US, have lived all over west coast and midwest, and have traveled extensively throughout all regions of US. I have never heard people use the singular they in this pattern.
Where are you from? Wondering if perhaps it is a regional dialect difference.
easy to just say "they" instead of he or she. if you know what they are then you wouldnt keep using they
It may fall under the generic UK North-South speech and language split.