Singular they

From Open Encyclopedia

Singular they, sometimes called epicene they, is the usage in the English language of the gender-neutral third-person plural pronouns they, them, etc, to refer to a single person, usually but not always of indeterminate gender. Singular they is more common in informal speech and is increasingly common in formal speech.

1 Use
2 History
3 Modern reactions
4 See also
5 External links

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Use

It is commonly assumed that this use is due to the singular third-person personal pronouns being either gender specific, such as the forms of he and she, or considered to be inappropriate when referring to people, such as the forms of it. However, historically, the singular they arose when the number of the referent was indefinite, not the gender.

It should be noted that while singular they is semantically singular, it is syntactically plural. Thus singular they takes third-person plural verb forms. This is parallel to the use of you, which was originally a plural pronoun, but which today takes the plural form of the verb whether referring to one person or several. The reflexive and intensive form of plural they is themselves, and some speakers use this form for singular they as well; other speakers, however, use the singular form themself, again parallel to plural yourselves and singular yourself. Regardless, singular they is used with singular nouns, as in the sentence, "If someone flies a plane, then they are a pilot." The singular they can also take the possessive form, as in "Someone put their eye up to the hole."

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History

Although language purists have long attacked this usage as being grammatically incorrect, singular they has a centuries-long history of use by the greatest authors of the English language, including Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. A few literary passages include:

I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly. – Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1812-1814

A person cannot help their birth. – Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1848

‘Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear the speech. – Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3, 1600-1602

Note that Shakespeare used singular they for a referent of indefinite number (it refers both to a mother, namely Hamlet's mother, and simultaneously to mothers in general) even though the gender cannot be in doubt. He could not have used it if the referent had been an identifiable person, such as the mother of Hamlet.

Singular they retains this implication of indefinite reference, and is most commonly used with indefinite referents such as someone, anyone, everyone, and no one. The motivation for this can be clearly seen in,

Caesar: No, Cleopatra. No man goes to battle to be killed.

Cleopatra: But they do get killed.

– George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, 1901

Many people today would not easily associate he with no one, but according to traditional grammar, phrases like no man and no one are grammatically singular, and therefore must take a singular pronoun. Semantically, however, they refers to the men who are killed, just as singular everybody in the Austen quote above refers to the people who get married.

The use of singular they in formal writing is on the rise. This may be due, at least in part, to an increasing desire for gender-neutral language; while writers a hundred years ago might have had no qualm using he with a referent of indeterminate gender, writers today often feel uncomfortable with this. The solution in formal writing has often been to write he or she, or something similar, but this is sometimes condemned as awkward, overly politically correct, or both. Singular they sounds less obstructive and more natural to many ears than he or she, since it is used naturally in conversation with no such conscious motive.

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Modern reactions

Today, grammar and usage guides which have accepted singular they state that singular they can only be used to refer to an indeterminate person, but not to a person identified as a particular individual, even if that person's gender is unknown. For example, one might say "A person might find themself in a fix" but not "The doctor might find themself". In the latter case, the most usual thing to do is to recast the sentence in the plural ("Doctors might find themselves") or second person ("If you're a doctor, you might find yourself"). Singular they is occasionally used to refer to an indeterminate person whose gender is known, as in "No mother should be forced to testify against their child", or the Shakespearean quotation above.

However, this usage is controversial. Some grammarians continue to view singular they as inherently ungrammatical, and certainly non-standard. Others feel that there is no good reason not to extend singular they to include specific people of unknown gender, as well as transgender or intersexual people who do not identify exclusively with one gender or the other. This debate is tied in with wider issues of political correctness and equal rights, as well as the extent to which language influences thought (see the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis).

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