Singular they

Singular they, sometimes called epicene they, is the usage in the English language of the gender-neutral third-person plural pronoun they and its inflected forms — they, them, their, theirs, themselves (or themself) — to refer to a singular antecedent, often of indeterminate sex, as for example in:

How do you know they did it if you didn't see their face?

Singular they has become more common in informal speech, and is gaining acceptance in formal use.

Usage

It is commonly assumed that this usage is due to the singular third-person personal pronouns being either gender-specific (he/she, "himself"/"herself", etc.) or inappropriate for 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.

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 and which today takes the plural form of the verb even when referring to one person. The reflexive form of plural they is themselves, and some speakers use this form for singular they as well; others use the singular form themself analogously to the singular yourself. Regardless, singular they, them, etc. are used with singular referents: "If anyone claims this seat is theirs, tell them they'll have to show their reservation."

History

Although prescriptivists have long attacked this usage as being grammatically incorrect, singular they has a centuries-long history of use, and there are examples in the works of several notable authors. These include:

Eche of theym sholde ^* make theymselfe redy. — William Caxton, The foure sonnes of Aymon, i. 39, ca. 1489"themselves" Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. OED Online Oxford University Press. Accessed June 11, 2006.

There's not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend — Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3, 1594

Arise; one knocks. ^* Hark, how they knock! — Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 3, 1599

'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

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

In the example from Hamlet, Shakespeare used singular they for a referent of indefinite number (it refers both to a mother, namely Hamlet's mother, and to mothers in general) even though the gender cannot be in doubt. He would not have used it if the referent had been an identifiable person, such as the mother of Hamlet. Similarly, the example from The Comedy of Errors also involves indefinite number. Romeo has two lines between the friar's "one knocks" and "how they knock," which reduces the value of that example.

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:

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

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

Cleopatra: But they do get killed.

– George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, 1901

Few people today would easily use he where Shaw used they, but according to traditional grammar, phrases like no man and everybody are grammatically singular and therefore a pronominal coreferent must be singular. Semantically, however, they refers to the men who are killed, just as Austen's singular everybody refers to the people who get married.

The use of masculine generic nouns and pronouns in written and spoken language has decreased since the 1960s (Pauwels 2003, p. 563). In a corpus of spontaneous speech collected in Australia in the 1990s, singular they had become the most frequently used generic pronoun (op. cit., p. 564). The increased usage of singular they may be at least partly due 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. One solution in formal writing has often been to write he or she, or something similar, but this is condemned as awkward when used excessively , overly politically correct,Matossian, Lou Ann. Burglars, Babysitters, and Persons: A Sociolinguistic Study of Generic Pronoun Usage in Philadelphia and Minneapolis. University of Pennsylvania, 1997 ^* accessed 10 Jun 2006. or both.

In certain contexts, singular they may sound less obstructive and more natural than generic he, or he or she; Huddleston and Pullum (2005, p. 104) give the following example:

Nobody in their right mind would do a thing like that.

The alternative formulation ("Nobody in his right mind…") "now seems inappropriate to a large proportion of speakers, who systematically avoid the use of he in such contexts" (loc. cit.).

Modern reactions

Today, grammar and usage guides that have accepted singular they state American Heritage Dictionary, 1992; and the Chicago Manual of Style, 1993; cited in Madson, Laura and Robert Hessling. Readers' Perceptions of Four Alternatives to Masculine Generic Pronouns. Journal of Social Psychology; Feb2001, Vol. 141 Issue 1, p156-158, 3p. see also (Baranowski 2002) 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 *"Dr. Brown might find themself in a fix". 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 two of the three Shakespeare quotations above.

However, this usage is controversial. Some grammarians continue to view singular they as grammatically inconsistent, and recommend either recasting in the plural or avoiding the pronoun altogether. Others including Warenda, Amy. They in Writing across the curriculum, Vol 4 Apr 1993 accessed 10 Jun 2006, and Juliane Schwarz of the University of Bristol, [http://www.uce.ac.uk/crq/individual-pubs/juliane/handout-bristol.pdf accessed 10 June 2005. and (Baranowski 2002)say that there is no sufficient reason not to extend singular they to include specific people of unknown gender, as well as to transgender or intersexual people who do not identify exclusively with one gender or the other. As discussed in detail at the references and external links below, current debate relates to wider questions of political correctness and equal rights. The extent to which language influences thought may also be an important factor.

Australia is one of the few places in the English speaking world to officially sanction its use. In particular, the Australian Government officially encourages its use in publications as a gender-neutral alternative to "he or she".

While usage is now widespread in most circles is terms of gender-indeterminate antecedents, usage of 'singular they' with a gender-determinate antecedent is not overly common, and is still seen by most grammarians as problematic, as it can cause confusion; in the case of the sentence "A man said they needed to use my phone" it is hard to see that 'they' refers to the man - it might just as easily refer to a third party. Study indicates that when used with a gender-determinate antecedent, reading time of 'singular they' increases significantly; indicating that use in this situation can be confusing. Foertsch, Julie and Morton Ann Gernsbacher. In search of Gender Neutrality: Is Singular They a Cognitively Efficient Substitute for Generic He? in Psychological Science, Vol 8 No 2 Mar 1997 pp106-111. online at http://step.psy.cmu.edu/articles/Foertsch.pdf accessed 10 Jun 2006 . In these situations, most style guides recommend seeking an alternative to avoid confusion.

For a variety of approaches to this problem as used in other modern languages, see Gender-neutral pronoun.

Notes

References

Baranowski, M. Current usage of the epicene pronoun in written English. in Journal of Sociolinguistics; Aug2002, Vol. 6 Issue 3, p378-397, 20p
Pauwels, Anne (2003). "Linguistic sexism and feminist linguistic activism". Chapter 24 in The Handbook of Language and Gender, edited by Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. ISBN 0631225021.

External links

The Singular "They"
Singular They and Jane Austen
Gender Neutral Pronoun FAQ on Singular They
Steven Pinker on the English singular "their" construction
Regender can translate webpages to use the gender-neutral singular "they".
Grammar myths debunked Geoff Pullum summarized very briefly indeed, on the occasion of the publication of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. This myth gets but three short sentences.
Anyone who had a heart (would know their own language) by Geoff Pullum. Transcript of a radio talk. This does not dodge technical issues, but it is still very accessible.
Everyone at The Times agrees ... no they don't Geoff Pullum on prescriptivism from the (London) Times.

Disputes in English grammar | Pronouns | They singulier