Singulares they

Singular they is the use in English of the pronoun they or its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (or themself), as an epicene (gender-neutral) singular pronoun. It typically occurs with an unspecified antecedent, as in sentences such as:

• "Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Would they please collect it?"Vorlage:Sfn
• "The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."Vorlage:Sfn
• "But a journalist should not be forced to reveal their sources."Vorlage:Sfn

The singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after plural they. It has been commonly employed in everyday English ever since then, and has gained currency in official contexts, though it has been strongly criticized at least since the late-19th century by prescriptive experts as they deem it to be an "error". Its use in modern standard English has become more common and accepted with the trend toward gender-neutral language, though most style guides continue to proscribe it, considering it colloquial and less appropriate in formal writing.

In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals has been promoted for those who do not identify as male or female.

• "This is my friend, Jay. I met them at work. They are a talented artist."

Inflected forms and derivative pronouns

The "singular they" permits a singular antecedent, used with the same (plural) verb forms as plural they, and has the same inflected forms as plural they (i.e. them, their, and theirs),Vorlage:Sfn except that in the reflexive form, "themself" is sometimes used instead of "themselves".

Inflected forms of third-person personal pronouns

Pronoun	Subjective (nominative)	Objective (accusative)	Prenominal possessive (dependent genitive)	Predicative possessive (independent genitive)	Reflexive
He	Vorlage:Em laughs.	I hug Vorlage:Em.	Vorlage:Em hair grows.	I use Vorlage:Em.	He dresses Vorlage:Em.
She	Vorlage:Em laughs.	I hug Vorlage:Em.	Vorlage:Em hair grows.	I use Vorlage:Em.	She dresses Vorlage:Em.
Plural they	When I tell people a joke, Vorlage:Em laugh.	Whether they win or lose, I hug Vorlage:Em.	As long as people live, Vorlage:Em hair grows.	Most of my friends have cell phones, so I use Vorlage:Em.	The children dress Vorlage:Em.
Singular they	When I tell somebody a joke, Vorlage:Em laugh.	When I greet a friend, I hug Vorlage:Em.	When somebody does not get a haircut, Vorlage:Em hair grows long.	If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend lets me borrow Vorlage:Em.	Each child dresses Vorlage:Em [or Vorlage:Em].
Generic he	When I tell someone a joke, Vorlage:Em laughs.	When I greet a friend, I hug Vorlage:Em.	When someone does not get a haircut, Vorlage:Em hair grows long.	If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend lets me borrow Vorlage:Em.	Each child dresses Vorlage:Em.

Themself is attested from the 14th to 16th centuries. Its use has been increasing since the 1970sVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn or 1980s,Vorlage:Sfn though it is sometimes still classified as "a minority form".Vorlage:Sfn In 2002, Payne and Huddleston, in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, called its use in standard dialect "rare and acceptable only to a minority of speakers" but "likely to increase with the growing acceptance of they as a singular pronoun".Vorlage:Sfn It is useful when referring to a single person of indeterminate gender, where the plural form themselves might seem incongruous, as in:

• "It is not an actor pretending to be Reagan or Thatcher, it is, in grotesque form, the person themself." — Ian Hislop (1984);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Fowler'sVorlage:Sfn

Regional preferences

The Canadian government recommends themselves as the reflexive form of singular they for use in Canadian federal legislative texts and advises against using themself,Vorlage:Sfn but themself is also found:

• "Where a recipient of an allowance under section 4 absents themself from Canada ..." — War Veterans Allowance Act, section 14.Vorlage:Sfn
• "... the following conditions are imposed on a person or group of persons in respect of whom a deposit is required: ... to present themself or themselves at the time and place that an officer or the Immigration Division requires them to appear to comply with any obligation imposed on them under the Act." — Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, section 48.Vorlage:Sfn

Usage

Vorlage:Further They with a singular antecedent goes back to the Middle English of the 14th centuryVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn (slightly younger than they with a plural antecedent, which was borrowed from Old Norse in the 13th century), and has remained in common use for centuries in spite of its proscription by traditional grammarians beginning in the late 18th century.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

Informal spoken English exhibits nearly universal use of the singular they. An examination by Jürgen Gerner of the British National Corpus published in 1998 found that British speakers regardless of social status, age, sex, or region used the singular they overwhelmingly more often than the gender-neutral he or other options.Vorlage:Sfn

Older usage

Singular they is found in the writings of many respected authors. Here are some examples, arranged chronologically:

• "Eche on in þer craft ys wijs." ("Each one in their craft is wise.") — Wycliffe's Bible, Ecclus. 38.35 (1382)
• "And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, They wol come up..." — Chaucer, "The Pardoner's Prologue" of The Canterbury Tales (Vorlage:Circa)Vorlage:Sfn quoted by Jespersen and thence in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Eche of theym sholde ... make theymselfe redy." — Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon (c. 1489)Vorlage:Sfn
• "If a person is born of a ... gloomy temper ... they cannot help it." — Chesterfield, Letter to his son (1759);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Fowler's.Vorlage:Sfn
• "A person can't help their birth." — Rosalind, in W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848);Vorlage:Sfn quoted from the OED by Curzan in Gender Shifts in the History of English.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Now nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing" — Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive (1866);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Fowler's.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Nobody in their senses would give sixpence on the strength of a promissory note of the kind." — Bagehot, The Liberal Magazine (1910);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Fowler's.Vorlage:Sfn

Prescription of generic he

Alongside they, it was acceptable to use the pronoun he to refer to an indefinite person of any gender,Vorlage:Sfn as in the following:

• "If any one did not know it, it was his own fault." — George Washington Cable, Old Creole Days (1879);Vorlage:Sfn quoted by Baskervill.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Every person who turns this page has his own little diary." — W. M. Thackeray, On Lett's Diary (1869);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Baskervill, An English Grammar.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Suppose the life and fortune of every one of us would depend on his winning or losing a game of chess." — Thomas Huxley, A Liberal Education (1868);Vorlage:Sfn quoted by Baskervill.Vorlage:Sfn
• "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality." — Article 15, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).Vorlage:Sfn

Such usage is still occasionally found but has lost acceptability in most contexts, due to not being gender-neutral.

The earliest known explicit recommendation by a grammarian to use the generic he rather than they in formal English is Ann Fisher's mid-18th century A New Grammar assertion that "The Masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, any Person who knows what he says." (Ann FisherVorlage:Sfn as quoted by OstadeVorlage:Sfn)

Nineteenth-century grammarians insisted on he as a gender-neutral pronoun on the grounds of number agreement, while rejecting "he or she" as clumsy,Vorlage:Sfn and this was widely adopted: e.g. in 1850, the British Parliament passed an act which provided that, when used in acts of Parliament "words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females".Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Baskervill and Sewell mention the common use of the singular they in their An English Grammar for the Use of High School, Academy and College Class of 1895, but prefer the generic he on the basis of number agreement:Vorlage:Sfn

Baskervill gives a number of examples of recognized authors using the singular they, including:

• "Every one must judge according to their own feelings." — Lord Byron, Werner (1823),Vorlage:Sfn quoted as "Every one must judge of [sic] their own feelings."Vorlage:Sfn
• "Had the Doctor been contented to take my dining tables as any body in their senses would have done ..." — Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814);Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
• "If the part deserve any comment, every considering Christian will make it to themselves as they go ..." — Daniel Defoe, The Family Instructor (1816);Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn
• "Every person's happiness depends in part upon the respect they meet in the world ..." — William PaleyVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

It has been argued that the real motivation for promoting the "generic" he was an androcentric world view, with the default sex of humans being male – and the default gender therefore being masculine.Vorlage:Sfn There is some evidence for this: Wilson wrote in 1560:

• "... let us keepe a naturall order, and set the man before the woman for manners sake". — Wilson, The arte of Rhetorique (1560);Vorlage:Sfn
• "... the worthier is preferred and set before. As a man is set before a woman ..." — Wilson, The arte of Rhetorique (1560);Vorlage:Sfn

and Poole wrote in 1646

• "The Masculine gender is more worthy than the Feminine." — Poole The English Accidence (1646);Vorlage:Sfn cited by BodineVorlage:Sfn

In spite of continuous attempts on the part of educationalists to proscribe singular they in favour of he, this advice was largely ignored; even writers of the period continued to use they (though the proscription may have been observed more by American writers).Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Use of the purportedly gender-neutral he remained acceptable until at least the 1960s,Vorlage:Sfn though some uses of he were later criticized as being awkward or silly, for instance when referring to:Vorlage:Sfn

• indeterminate persons of both sexes:
  • "the ideal that every boy and girl should be so equipped that he shall not be handicapped in his struggle for social progress ..." — C. C. Fries, American English Grammar, (1940).Vorlage:Sfn
• known persons of both sexes:
  • "She and Louis had a game – who could find the ugliest photograph of himself." — Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin (1971)Vorlage:Sfn

Contemporary use of he to refer to a generic or indefinite antecedent

He is still sometimes found in contemporary writing when referring to a generic or indeterminate antecedent. In some cases it is clear from the situation that the persons potentially referred to are likely to be male, as in:

• "The patient should be informed of his therapeutic options." — a text about prostate cancer (2004)Vorlage:Sfn

In some cases the antecedent may refer to persons who are only probably male or to occupations traditionally thought of as male:

• "It wouldn't be as if the lone astronaut would be completely by himself." (2008)Vorlage:Sfn
• "Kitchen table issues ... are ones the next president can actually do something about if he actually cares about it. More likely if she cares about it!" — Hillary Rodham Clinton (2008)Vorlage:Sfn

In other situations, the antecedent may refer to:

• an indeterminate person of either sex:
  • "Now, a writer is entitled to have a Roget on his desk." — Barzun (1985);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English UsageVorlage:Sfn
  • "A Member of Parliament should always live in his constituency."Vorlage:Sfn

In 2010, Choy and Clark still recommend the use of generic he "in formal speech or writing":Vorlage:Sfn

"... when indefinite pronouns are used as antecedents, they require singular subject, object, and possessive pronouns ..."

• "Everyone did as he pleased"

"In informal spoken English, plural pronouns are often used with indefinite pronoun antecedents. However, this construction is generally not considered appropriate in formal speech or writing.

Informal: Somebody should let you borrow their book.

Formal: Somebody should let you borrow his book."

 — Choy, Basic Grammar and UsageVorlage:Sfn

In 2015, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage calls this "the now outmoded use of he to mean 'anyoneVorlage:'",Vorlage:Sfn stating:Vorlage:Sfn Vorlage:Quote

In 2016, Garner's Modern English calls the generic use of masculine pronouns "the traditional view, now widely assailed as sexist".Vorlage:Sfn

Trend toward gender-neutral language

Vorlage:Off topic The earliest known attempt to create gender-neutral pronouns dates back to 1792, when Scottish economist James Anderson advocated for an indeterminate pronoun "ou".

In 1808, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:

In the second half of the 20th century, people expressed more widespread concern at the use of sexist and male-oriented language.Vorlage:Sfn This included criticism of the use of man as a generic term to include men and women and of the use of he to refer to any human, regardless of sex (social gender).Vorlage:Sfn

It was argued that he could not sensibly be used as a generic pronoun understood to include men and women. William Safire in his On Language column in The New York Times approved of the use of generic he, mentioning the mnemonic phrase "the male embraces the female".Vorlage:Sfn C. Badendyck from Brooklyn wrote to the New York Times in a reply:Vorlage:Sfn

By 1980, the movement had gained wide support, and many organizations, including most publishers, had issued guidelines on the use of gender-neutral language.Vorlage:Sfn

Contemporary usage

The use of masculine generic nouns and pronouns in written and spoken language has decreased since the 1970s.Vorlage:Sfn In a corpus of spontaneous speech collected in Australia in the 1990s, singular they had become the most frequently used generic pronoun (rather than generic he or he or she).Vorlage:Sfn Similarly, a study from 2002 looking at a corpus of American and British newspapers showed a preference for they to be used as a singular epicene pronoun.

The increased use of singular they may owe in part to an increasing desire for gender-neutral language. A solution in formal writing has often been to write "he or she", or something similar, but this is often considered awkward or overly politically correct, particularly when used excessively.Vorlage:Sfn In 2016, the journal American Speech published a study by Darren K. LaScotte investigating the pronouns used by native English speakers in informal written responses to questions concerning a subject of unspecified gender, finding that 68% of study participants chose singular they to refer to such an antecedent. Some participants noted that they found constructions such as "he or she" inadequate as they do not include people who do not identify as either male or female.

Use with a pronoun antecedent

The singular antecedent can be a pronoun such as someone, anybody, or everybody, or an interrogative pronoun such as who:

• with somebody or someone:
  • "I feel that if someone is not doing their job it should be called to their attention." — an American newspaper (1984); quoted by Fowler.Vorlage:Sfn
• with anybody or anyone:
  • "If anyone tells you that America's best days are behind her, then theyre looking the wrong way." President George Bush, 1991 State of the Union Address;Vorlage:Sfn quoted by GarnerVorlage:Sfn
  • "Anyone can set themselves up as an acupuncturist." — Sarah Lonsdale "Sharp Practice Pricks Reputation of Acupuncture". Observer 15 December 1991, as cited by GarnerVorlage:Sfn
  • "If anybody calls, take their name and ask them to call again later." Example given by SwanVorlage:Sfn
• with nobody or no one:
  • "No one put their hand up." Example given by Huddleston et al.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "No one felt they had been misled." Example given by Huddleston et al.Vorlage:Sfn
• even where the gender is known or assumed:
  • "Under new rules to be announced tomorrow, it will be illegal for anyone to donate an organ to their wife."Vorlage:Efn Ballantyne, "Transplant Jury to Vet Live Donors", Sunday Times (London) 25 3. 1990, as cited by GarnerVorlage:Sfn
• with an interrogative pronoun as antecedent:
  • "Who thinks they can solve the problem?". Example given by Huddleston et al.; The Cambridge Grammar of the English language.Vorlage:Sfn
• with everybody, everyone, etc.:
  • "Everyone promised to behave themselves." Example given by Huddleston et al.Vorlage:Sfn

Notional plurality or pairwise relationships

Although the pronouns everybody, everyone, nobody, and no one are singular in form and are used with a singular verb, these pronouns have an "implied plurality" that is somewhat similar to the implied plurality of collective or group nouns such as crowd or team,Vorlage:Efn and in some sentences where the antecedent is one of these "implied plural" pronouns, the word they cannot be replaced by generic he,Vorlage:Sfn suggesting a "notional plural" rather than a "bound variable" interpretation Vorlage:See below. This is in contrast to sentences that involve multiple pairwise relationships and singular they, such as:

• "Everyone loves their mother."Vorlage:Sfn
• Vorlage:"'I never did get into that football thing', she said after everyone returned to their seat."Vorlage:Sfn
• "Everyone doubts themselves/themself at one time or another."

There are examples where the antecedent pronoun (such as everyone) may refer to a collective, with no necessary implication of pairwise relationships. These are examples of plural they:

• "At first everyone in the room was singing; then they began to laugh." Example given by Kolln.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Everybody was crouched behind the furniture to surprise me, and they tried to. But I already knew they were there." Example given by Garner.Vorlage:Sfn
• "Nobody was late, were they?" Example given by Swan.Vorlage:Sfn

Which are apparent because they do not work with a generic he or he or she:

• • "At first everyone in the room was singing; then he or she began to laugh." Example given by Kolln.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "Everybody was crouched behind the furniture to surprise me, and he tried to. But I already knew he was there."
  • "Nobody was late, was he?"

In addition, for these "notional plural" cases, it would not be appropriate to use themself instead of themselves as in:

• • "Everybody was crouched behind the furniture to surprise me, but they instead surprised themself."

Use with a generic noun as antecedent

The singular antecedent can also be a noun such as person, patient, or student:

• with a noun (e.g. person, student, patient) used generically (e.g. in the sense of any member of that class or a specific member unknown to the speaker or writer)
  • "... if the child possesses the nationality or citizenship of another country, they may lose this when they get a British passport." From a British passport application form; quoted by Swan.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "cognitive dissonance: "a concept in psychology [that] describes the condition in which a person's attitudes conflict with their behaviour". — Macmillan Dictionary of Business and Management (1988), as cited by Garner.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "A starting point would be to give more support to the company secretary. They are, or should be, privy to the confidential deliberations and secrets of the board and the company. — Ronald Severn. "Protecting the Secretary Bird". Financial Times, 6 January 1992; quoted by Garner.Vorlage:Sfn
• with representatives of a class previously referred to in the singular
  • "I had to decide: Is this person being irrational or is he right? Of course, they were often right." — Robert Burchfield in U.S. News & World Report 11 August 1986, as cited in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English UsageVorlage:Sfn
• Even when referring to a class of persons of known sex, they is sometimes used.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "The sizing technology works via an iPhone app. To use it, a woman must take two pictures of themselves while wearing a tight fitted top in front of a mirror." Shane Hickey, "The innovators: the app promising the perfect-fitting bra", The Guardian 10 January 2015,Vorlage:Sfn as cited by Mark Liberman on "Language Log"Vorlage:Sfn
  • "I swear more when I'm talking to a boy, because I'm not afraid of shocking them". From an interview.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "No mother should be forced to testify against their child".
• They may also be used with antecedents of mixed genders:
  • "Let me know if your father or your mother changes their mind." Example given by Huddleston et al.Vorlage:Sfn
  • "Either the husband or the wife has perjured themself." Here themself might be acceptable to some, themselves seems less acceptable, and himself is unacceptable. Example given by Huddleston et al.Vorlage:Sfn
• Even for a definite known person of known sex, they may be used in order to ignore or conceal the sex.
  • "I had a friend in Paris, and they had to go to hospital for a month." (definite person, not identified)Vorlage:Sfn
• The word themself is also sometimes used when the antecedent is known or believed to be a single person:
  • "Someone has apparently locked themself in the office."[acceptability questionable]Vorlage:Sfn

Use for specific, known people, including non-binary people

Known individuals may be referred to as they if the individual's gender is unknown to the speaker.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

A known individual may also be referred to as they if the individual is non-binary or genderqueer, regards male or female pronouns as inappropriate, and prefers they instead.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Several social media applications permit account holders to choose to identify their gender using one of a variety of non-binary or genderqueer options, such as gender fluid, agender, or bigender, and to designate a pronoun, including they/them, which they wish to be used when referring to them.Vorlage:Sfn Though "singular they" has long been used with antecedents such as everybody or generic persons of unknown gender, this use, which may be chosen by an individual, is recent.Vorlage:Sfn

The singular they in the meaning "gender-neutral singular pronoun for a known person, as a non-binary identifier"Vorlage:Sfn was chosen by the American Dialect Society as their "Word of the Year" for 2015.Vorlage:Sfn In 2016, the American Dialect Society wrote:

Vorlage:Quote The vote followed the previous year's approval of this use by The Washington Post style guide, when Bill Walsh, the Posts copy editor, said that the singular they is "the only sensible solution to English's lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun".Vorlage:Sfn

In 2019, the non-binary they was added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

The first non-binary main character on North American television appeared on the Showtime drama series Billions in 2017, with Asia Kate Dillon playing Taylor Mason. Both actor and character use singular they.

Acceptability and prescriptive guidance

Though both generic he and generic they have long histories of use, and both are still used, both are also systematically avoided by particular groups.Vorlage:Sfn

Style guides that avoid expressing a preference for either approach sometimes recommend recasting a problem sentence, for instance replacing generic expressions with plurals to avoid the criticisms of either party.

The use of singular they may be more accepted in British English than in American English,Vorlage:Sfn or vice versa.Vorlage:Sfn

Usage guidance in American style guides

Garner's Modern American Usage

Garner's Modern American Usage (2nd ed., 2003) recommends cautious use of singular they, and avoidance where possible because its use is stigmatized.

• "Where noun–pronoun disagreement can be avoided, avoid it. Where it can't be avoided, resort to it cautiously because some people will doubt your literacy ..."Vorlage:Sfn

Garner suggests that use of singular they is more acceptable in British English:

• "Speakers of Vorlage:Abbr resist this development more than speakers of Vorlage:Abbr, in which the indeterminate they is already more or less standard."Vorlage:Sfn

and apparently regrets the resistance by the American language community:

• "That it sets many literate Americans' teeth on edge is an unfortunate obstacle to what promises to be the ultimate solution to the problem."Vorlage:Sfn

He regards the trend toward using singular they with antecedents like everybody, anyone and somebody as inevitable:

• "Disturbing though these developments may be to purists, they're irreversible. And nothing that a grammarian says will change them."Vorlage:Sfn

The Chicago Manual of Style (1993–2010)

In the 14th edition (1993) of The Chicago Manual of Style, the University of Chicago Press explicitly recommended using singular they and their, noting a "revival" of this usage and citing "its venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare."Vorlage:Sfn From the 15th edition (2003), this was changed. In Chapter 5 of the 16th edition (2010), now written by Bryan A. Garner, the recommendations are:Vorlage:Sfn

and:Vorlage:Sfn

The American Heritage Book of English Usage (1996)

According to The American Heritage Book of English Usage and its usage panel of selected writers, journalism professors, linguists, and other experts, many Americans avoid use of they to refer to a singular antecedent out of respect for a "traditional" grammatical rule, despite use of singular they by modern writers of note and mainstream publications:Vorlage:Sfn

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

The 6th edition of the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual rejects most use of singular they and gives the following example as "incorrect" usage:Vorlage:Sfn

However, APA style endorses using "they" if it is someone's (for example, a non-binary person's) preferred pronoun.

The upcoming 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual, scheduled to be released in October 2019, will include guidelines on using singular they for bias free writing.

Strunk & White's The Elements of Style

William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White, the original authors of The Elements of Style, found use of they with a singular antecedent unacceptable and advised use of the singular pronoun (he). In the 3rd edition (1979), the recommendation was still:Vorlage:Sfn

The assessment, in 1979, was:Vorlage:Sfn

In the 4th edition (2000), use of singular they was still proscribed against, but use of generic he was no longer recommended.Vorlage:Sfn

Joseph M. Williams's The Basics of Clarity and Grace (2009)

Joseph M. Williams, who wrote a number of books on writing with "clarity and grace", discusses the advantages and disadvantages of various solutions when faced with the problem of referring to an antecedent such as someone, everyone, no one or a noun that does not indicate gender and suggests that this will continue to be a problem for some time. He "suspect[s] that eventually we will accept the plural they as a correct singular" but states that currently "formal usage requires a singular pronoun".Vorlage:Sfn

The Little, Brown Handbook (1992)

According to The Little, Brown Handbook, most experts – and some teachers and employers – find use of singular they unacceptable: Vorlage:Quote

It recommends using he or she or avoiding the problem by rewriting the sentence to use a plural or omit the pronoun.Vorlage:Sfn

Purdue Online Writing Lab

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) states that the use of singular they is acceptable:

Vorlage:QuoteOWL also notes that the use of singular they is more inclusive:

The Washington Post

The Washington Post's stylebook, as of 2015, recommends trying to "write around the problem, perhaps by changing singulars to plurals, before using the singular they as a last resort" and specifically permits use of they for a "gender-nonconforming person".Vorlage:Sfn

Associated Press Stylebook

The Associated Press Stylebook, as of 2017, recommends: "They/them/their is acceptable in limited cases as a singular and-or gender-neutral pronoun, when alternative wording is overly awkward or clumsy. However, rewording usually is possible and always is preferable."

The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing

In The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing, Casey Miller and Kate Swift accept or recommend singular uses of they in cases where there is an element of semantic plurality expressed by a word such as "everyone" or where an indeterminate person is referred to, citing examples of such usage in formal speech. Vorlage:Sfn They also suggest rewriting sentences to use a plural they, eliminating pronouns, or recasting sentences to use "one" or (for babies) "it".Vorlage:Sfn

Usage guidance in British style guides

In the first edition of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (published in 1926) use of the generic he is recommended.Vorlage:Sfn It is stated that singular they is disapproved of by grammarians. Numerous examples of its use by eminent writers in the past are given, but it is stated that "few good modern writers would flout [grammarians] so conspicuously as Fielding and Thackeray", whose sentences are described as having an "old-fashioned sound".Vorlage:Sfn

The second edition, Fowler's Modern English Usage (edited by Sir Ernest Gowers and published in 1965) continues to recommend use of the generic he; use of the singular they is called "the popular solution", which "sets the literary man's teeth on edge".Vorlage:Sfn It is stated that singular they is disapproved of by grammarians but common in colloquial speech. Numerous examples of its use by eminent writers are given, but it is stated that "few good modern writers would flout [grammarians] so conspicuously as Fielding and Thackeray".Vorlage:Sfn

According to the third edition, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (edited by Burchfield and published in 1996) singular they has not only been widely used by good writers for centuries, but is now generally accepted, except by some conservative grammarians, including the Fowler of 1926, who, it is argued, ignored the evidence:

The Complete Plain Words was originally written in 1948 by Ernest Gowers, a civil servant, in an attempt by the British civil service to improve "official English". A second edition, edited by Sir Bruce Fraser, was published in 1973. It refers to they or them as the "equivalent of a singular pronoun of common sex" as "common in speech and not unknown in serious writing " but "stigmatized by grammarians as usage grammatically indefensible. The book's advice for "official writers" (civil servants) is to avoid its use and not to be tempted by its "greater convenience", though "necessity may eventually force it into the category of accepted idiom".Vorlage:Sfn

A new edition of Plain Words, revised and updated by Gowers's great granddaughter, Rebecca Gowers, was published in 2014. It notes that singular they and them have become much more widespread since Gowers' original comments, but still finds it "safer" to treat a sentence like 'The reader may toss their book aside' as incorrect "in formal English", while rejecting even more strongly sentences like

• "There must be opportunity for the individual boy or girl to go as far as his keennness and ability will take him."Vorlage:Sfn

The Times Style and Usage Guide (first published in 2003 by The Times of London) recommends avoiding sentences like

• "If someone loves animals, they should protect them."

by using a plural construction:

• "If people love animals, they should protect them."

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2004, Cambridge University Press) finds singular they "unremarkable": Vorlage:Quote

It expresses several preferences.

• "Generic/universal their provides a gender-free pronoun, avoiding the exclusive his and the clumsy his/her. It avoids gratuitous sexism and gives the statement broadest reference ... They, them, their are now freely used in agreement with singular indefinite pronouns and determiners, those with universal implications such as any(one), every(one), no(one), as well as each and some(one), whose reference is often more individual ..."Vorlage:Sfn

The Economist Style Guide refers to the use of they in sentences like

• "We can't afford to squander anyone's talents, whatever colour their skin is."

as "scrambled syntax that people adopt because they cannot bring themselves to use a singular pronoun".Vorlage:Sfn

New Hart's Rules (Oxford University Press, 2012) is aimed at those engaged in copy editing, and the emphasis is on the formal elements of presentation including punctuation and typeface, rather than on linguistic style, although – like The Chicago Manual of Style – it makes occasional forays into matters of usage. It advises against use of the purportedly gender-neutral he, and suggests cautious use of they where he or she presents problems. Vorlage:Quote

The 2011 edition of the New International Version Bible uses singular they instead of the traditional he when translating pronouns that apply to both genders in the original Greek or Hebrew. This decision was based on research by a commission that studied modern English usage and determined that singular they (them/their) was by far the most common way that English-language speakers and writers today refer back to singular antecedents such as whoever, anyone, somebody, a person, no one, and the like."Vorlage:Sfn

The British edition of The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing, modified in some respects from the original US edition to conform to differences in culture and vocabulary, preserved the same recommendations, allowing singular they with semantically plural terms like "everyone" and indeterminate ones like "person", but recommending a rewrite to avoid.Vorlage:Sfn

Australian usage guidance

The Australian Federation Press Style Guide for Use in Preparation of Book Manuscripts recommends "gender-neutral language should be used", stating that use of they and their as singular pronouns is acceptable.Vorlage:Sfn

Usage guidance in English grammars

According to A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985):Vorlage:Sfn

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language discusses the prescriptivist argument that they is a plural pronoun and that the use of they with a singular "antecedent" therefore violates the rule of agreement between antecedent and pronoun, but takes the view that they, though primarily plural, can also be singular in a secondary extended sense, comparable to the purportedly extended sense of he to include female gender.Vorlage:Sfn

Use of singular they is stated to be "particularly common", even "stylistically neutral" with antecedents such as everyone, someone, and no one, but more restricted when referring to common nouns as antecedents, as in

• "The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."Vorlage:Sfn
• "A friend of mine has asked me to go over and help them ..."Vorlage:Sfn

Use of the pronoun themself is described as being "rare" and "acceptable only to a minority of speakers", while use of the morphologically plural themselves is considered problematic when referring to someone rather than everyone (since only the latter implies a plural set).Vorlage:Sfn

There are also issues of grammatical acceptability when reflexive pronouns refer to singular noun phrases joined by or, the following all being problematic:

• "Either the husband or the wife has perjured himself." [ungrammatical]
• "Either the husband or the wife has perjured themselves." [of questionable grammaticality]
• "Either the husband or the wife has perjured themself." [typically used by only some speakers of Standard English].Vorlage:Sfn

On the motivation for using singular they, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar states:Vorlage:Sfn

The alternative he or she can be "far too cumbersome", as in:

• "Everyone agreed that he or she would bring his or her lunch with him or her.

or even "flatly ungrammatical", as in

• "Everyone's here, isn't he or she?Vorlage:Sfn

"Among younger speakers", use of singular they even with definite noun-phrase antecedents finds increasing acceptance, "sidestepping any presumption about the sex of the person referred to", as in:

• "You should ask your partner what they think."
• "The person I was with said they hated the film." Example given by Huddleston et al.Vorlage:Sfn

Grammatical and logical analysis

Notional agreement

One explanation given for some uses of they referring to a singular antecedent is notional agreement, when the antecedent is seen as semantically plural:

• Vorlage:"'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech." — Shakespeare, Hamlet (1599);Vorlage:Sfn quoted in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage.Vorlage:Sfn
• "No man goes to battle to be killed." ... "But they do get killed. — George Bernard Shaw, quoted in Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English UsageVorlage:Sfn

In other words, in the Shakespeare quotation a mother is syntactically singular but stands for all mothers,Vorlage:Sfn and in the Shaw quotation no man is syntactically singular (demonstrated by taking the singular form goes) but is semantically plural (all go [to kill] not to be killed), hence idiomatically requiring they.Vorlage:Sfn Such use, which goes back a long way, includes examples where the sex is known, as in the above examples.Vorlage:Sfn

Distribution

Distributive constructions apply a single idea to multiple members of a group. They are typically marked in English by words like each, every and any. The simplest examples are applied to groups of two, and use words like either and or – "Would you like tea or coffee?". Since distributive constructions apply an idea relevant to each individual in the group, rather than to the group as a whole, they are most often conceived of as singular, and a singular pronoun is used:

• "England expects that every man will do his duty." — Nelson (1805, referring to a fleet crewed by male sailors)
• "Every dog hath his day." – John Ray A Collection of English Proverbs (1670), originally from Plutarch, Moralia, c. 95 AD, regarding the death of Euripides.

However, many languages, including English, show ambivalence in this regard. Because distribution also requires a group with more than one member, plural forms are sometimes used.Vorlage:EfnVorlage:Example needed

Referential and non-referential anaphors

The singular they, which uses the same verb form plurals do, is typically used to refer to an indeterminate antecedent, for example:

• "The person you mentioned, are they coming?"

In some sentences, typically those including words like every or any, the morphologically singular antecedent does not refer to a single entity but is "anaphorically linked" to the associated pronoun to indicate a set of pairwise relationships, as in the sentence:Vorlage:Sfn

• "Everyone returned to their seats." (where each person is associated with one seat)

Linguists like Steven Pinker and Rodney Huddleston explain sentences like this (and others) in terms of bound variables, a term borrowed from logic. Pinker prefers the terms quantifier and bound variable to antecedent and pronoun.Vorlage:Sfn He suggests that pronouns used as "variables" in this way are more appropriately regarded as homonyms of the equivalent referential pronouns.Vorlage:Sfn

The following shows different types of anaphoric reference, using various pronouns, including they:

• coreferential, with a definite antecedent (the antecedent and the anaphoric pronoun both refer to the same real-world entity):
  • "Your wife phoned but she didn't leave a message."
• coreferential with an indefinite antecedent:
  • "One of your girlfriends phoned, but she didn't leave a message."
  • "One of your boyfriends phoned, but he didn't leave a message.
  • "One of your friends phoned, but they didn't leave a message."
• reference to a hypothetical, indefinite entity
  • "If you had an unemployed daughter, what would you think if she wanted to accept work as a pole dancer?"
  • "If you had an unemployed child, what would you think if they wanted to accept work as a mercenary or a pole dancer?"
• a bound variable pronoun is anaphorically linked to a quantifier (no single real-world or hypothetical entity is referenced; examples and explanations from Huddleston and Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English LanguageVorlage:Sfn):
  • "No one put their hand up." [approximately: "There is no person x such that x put xs hand up."]
  • "Every car had its windscreen broken." [approximately: "For every car x, x had xs windscreen broken."]

Cognitive efficiency

A study of whether "singular they" is more "difficult" to understand than gendered pronouns ("In Search of Gender Neutrality: Is Singular They a Cognitively Efficient Substitute for Generic He?" by Foertsch and Gernsbacher) found that "singular they is a cognitively efficient substitute for generic he or she, particularly when the antecedent is nonreferential" (e.g. anybody, a nurse, or a truck driver) rather than referring to a specific person (e.g. a runner I knew or my nurse). Clauses with singular they were read "just as quickly as clauses containing a gendered pronoun that matched the stereotype of the antecedent" (e.g. she for a nurse and he for a truck driver) and "much more quickly than clauses containing a gendered pronoun that went against the gender stereotype of the antecedent".

On the other hand, when the pronoun they was used to refer to known individuals ("referential antecedents, for which the gender was presumably known", e.g. my nurse, that truck driver, a runner I knew), reading was slowed when compared with use of a gendered pronoun consistent with the "stereotypic gender" (e.g. he for a specific truck driver).

The study concluded that "the increased use of singular they is not problematic for the majority of readers".Vorlage:Sfn

Comparison with other pronouns

The singular and plural use of they can be compared with the pronoun you, which had been both a plural and polite singular, but by about 1700 replaced thou for singular referents.Vorlage:Sfn For "you", the singular reflexive pronoun ("yourself") is different from its plural reflexive pronoun ("yourselves"); with "they" one can hear either "themself" or "themselves" for the singular reflexive pronoun.

Singular "they" has also been compared to "royal we" (also termed "editorial we"), when a single person uses first-person plural in place of first-person singular pronouns. Similar to singular "you", its singular reflexive pronoun ("ourself") is different from the plural reflexive pronoun ("ourselves").

The pronoun it, which is typically used for inanimate objects, can also be used for infants of unspecified gender but tends to be "dehumanizing" and is therefore more likely in a clinical context; in a more personal context, the use of it to refer to a person might indicate antipathy or other negative emotions.Vorlage:Sfn It can also be used for non-human animals of unspecified gender, though they is common for pets and other domesticated animals of unspecified gender, especially when referred to by a proper nameVorlage:Sfn (e.g. Rags, Snuggles). It is uncommon to use singular they instead of it for something other than a life form.Vorlage:Citation needed

See also

• Bound variable pronoun
• English personal pronouns
• Gender neutrality in English
• Notional agreement
• Spivak pronoun
• Third-person pronoun#Historical and dialectal gender-neutral pronouns

References

Sources

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External links

Wiktionary: they – Bedeutungserklärungen, Wortherkunft, Synonyme, Übersetzungen

• "Anyone who had a heart (would know their own language)" by Geoff Pullum. Transcript of a radio talk.