Singular they

Singular they is the use in English of the pronoun they, or its inflected or derivative forms, such as them, their, themself, or themselves, as a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to a single person or an antecedent that is grammatically singular. It typically occurs with an antecedent of indeterminate gender, as in sentences such as:

The singular they had emerged by the 14th century and is common in everyday spoken English, but its use has been the target of criticism since the late 19th century. Its use in formal English has increased with the trend toward gender-inclusive language.

Inflected forms and derivative pronouns

Inflected forms of third-person personal pronouns
Pronoun Subjective
(nominative)		 Objective
(accusative)		 Prenominal possessive
(dependent genitive)		 Predicative possessive
(independent genitive)		 Reflexive
He He laughs. I hug him. His hair grows. I use his. He feeds himself.
She She laughs. I hug her. Her hair grows. I use hers. She feeds herself.
Prototypical they When I tell my children a joke, they laugh. Whether they win or lose, I hug them. As long as people live, their hair grows. Most of my friends have cell phones, so I use theirs. The children feed themselves.
Singular they When I tell someone a joke, they laugh. When I greet a friend, I hug them. When someone does not get a haircut, their hair grows long. If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend lets me borrow theirs. Each child feeds themself.
Generic he When I tell someone a joke, he laughs. When I greet a friend, I hug him. When someone does not get a haircut, his hair grows long. If my mobile phone runs out of power, a friend lets me borrow his. Each child feeds himself.

Though the "singular they" permits a singular antecedent, it is used with a plural verb form.[3]

Singular they has mostly the same inflected forms as the plural they (i.e. them, their, and theirs), with variation in the reflexive form. The plural reflexive form themselves is sometimes used for the singular, but there is an alternative singular reflexive form, themself. Themself was common from the 14th to 16th centuries and its use has increased since about the 1970s[4][5] or 1980s,[6] but it was classified by the 2015 edition of Fowler's as "a minority form"[7] and its use in standard dialect was described by The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language as "rare and acceptable only to a minority of speakers".[4] Its use is thought to be increasing.[4][5] It is sometimes used when referring to a single person of indeterminate gender, where the plural form themselves might seem incongruous, as in

The Canadian government recommends themselves as the reflexive form of singular they for use in Canadian federal legislative texts and advises against using themself,[10] but themself is also found:

Usage

They with a singular antecedent has remained in common use for centuries in spite of its proscription by traditional grammarians.[13] Such use goes back to the Middle English of the 14th century.[14][15]

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.[16]

Older usage

Singular they is found in the writings of many respected authors.

Alongside they, it was also acceptable to use the pronoun he to refer to an indefinite person of either gender,[22] as in the following:

In Thackeray's writings, we find both

and

And Caxton writes

alongside

Trend to prescription of generic he from 19th century

Preferring he as a gender-neutral pronoun, nineteenth-century grammarians insisted on a singular pronoun on the grounds of number agreement, while rejecting "he or she" as clumsy.[33]

A recommendation to use the generic he, rather than they, in formal English can be found as early as the mid-18th century, in Ann Fisher's A New Grammar, where she writes:

The Masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, any Person who knows what he says[34] (as quoted by Ostade[35])

An 1895 grammar (Baskervill, W.M. and Sewell, J.W.: An English Grammar for the Use of High School, Academy and College Class) notes the common use of the singular they but recommends use of the generic he, on the basis of number agreement:

Another way of referring to an antecedent which is a distributive pronoun [e.g. everybody] or a noun modified by a distributive adjective [e.g. every], is to use the plural of the pronoun following. This is not considered the best usage, the logical analysis requiring the singular pronoun in each case; but the construction is frequently found when the antecedent includes or implies both genders. The masculine does not really represent a feminine antecedent, and the expression his or her is avoided as being cumbrous.
— Baskervill, An English Grammar[36]

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

but prefers the use of he:

... when the antecedent includes both masculine and feminine, or is a distributive word, taking in each of many persons,—the preferred method is to put the pronoun following in the masculine singular ...

—Baskervill, An English Grammar[30]

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".[41][42]

It has been argued that the real motivation for promoting the "generic" he was an androcentic world view, with the default sex of humans being male – and the default gender therefore being masculine.[33]

As Wilson wrote in 1560

and Poole wrote in 1646

In spite of continuous attempts on the part of educationalists to proscribe singular they in favour of he, its use remained widespread, and the advice was largely ignored, even by writers of the period, though the advice may have been observed more by American writers.[47][48]

Use of the purportedly gender-neutral he remained acceptable until at least the 1960s,[22] though some uses of he were later criticized as being awkward or silly, for instance when referring to:[49]

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

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

In other situations, the antecedent may refer to:

In 2010, we still find the use of generic he recommended:

"... 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 Usage[58]

In 2015, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage calls this "the now outmoded use of he to mean 'anyone'",[59] stating

"From the earliest times until about the 1960s it was unquestionably acceptable to use the pronoun he (and him, himself, his) with indefinite reference to denote a person of either sex, especially after indefinite pronouns and determiners such as anybody,  ... every, etc., after gender-neutral nouns such as person ... [but] alternative devices are now usually resorted to. When a gender-neutral pronoun or determiner ... is needed, the options usually adopted are the plural forms they, their, themselves, etc., or he or she (his or her, etc.)"
 — Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage[60]

Trend to gender-neutral language

The earliest attempt to create gender-neutral pronouns dates back to 1792, when Scottish economist James Anderson advocated for an indeterminate pronoun "ou".[61]

In 1808, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:

"whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or representative, to the word "Person", where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch, or noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words, as – "not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given" – instead of – "wherein he or she has offended". In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of "Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom."
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as written in Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Ernest Coleridge (1895), p. 190.[62][63]

In the second half of the 20th century, people expressed more widespread concern at the use of sexist and male-oriented language.[64] Such usage included not only the use of man as a false generic but also the use of he as a generic pronoun.[65]

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.[66] C. Badendyck from Brooklyn wrote to the New York Times in a reply:

"The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day."
— C. Badendyck, New York Times (1985),[67] as quoted by Miller and Swift.[68]

By 1980, the movement had gained wide support, and many organizations, including most publishers, had issued guidelines on the use of gender-neutral language.[64]

Use for specific, known people

In some situations, an individual may be known but referred to using the pronoun they. This may occur because the individual's gender is unknown to the speaker, or because the gender is non-binary or genderqueer, so that they regard both masculine and feminine pronouns as inappropriate and thus prefer to be referred to as they.[69][70] Several social media applications permit account holders to choose to identify their gender using one of a variety of non-binary or genderqueer options,[71] 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.[72] Though "singular they" has long been used with antecedents like everybody or generic persons of unknown gender, this use, which may be chosen by an individual, is recent.[73]

It was chosen by the American Dialect Society as the Word of the Year 2015,[73] in the meaning "gender-neutral singular pronoun for a known person, as a non-binary identifier".[74] In 2016, the American Dialect Society wrote:

"While editors have increasingly moved to accepting singular they when used in a generic fashion, voters in the Word of the Year proceedings singled out its newer usage as an identifier for someone who may identify as non-binary in gender terms."[75]

The vote followed the previous year's approval of this use by The Washington Post style guide, when Bill Walsh, the Post's 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".[76]

Contemporary usage

The use of masculine generic nouns and pronouns in written and spoken language has decreased since the 1960s.[77] In a corpus of spontaneous speech collected in Australia in the 1990s, singular they had become the most frequently used generic pronoun.[77] Similarly, a study from 2002 looking at a corpus of American and British newspapers showed a preference for they to be used (rather than generic he or he or she) as a singular epicene pronoun.[78]

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.[79][80]

In contemporary usage, singular they is used to refer to an indeterminate antecedent, for instance when the notional gender or number of the antecedent is indeterminate or the gender of the real-word entity referred to is unknown or unrevealed. Examples include different types of usage.

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:

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,[lower-alpha 1] and in some sentences where the antecedent is one of these "implied plural" pronouns, the word they cannot be replaced by generic he,[87] suggesting a "notional plural" rather than a "bound variable" interpretation.(See § Grammatical and logical analysis, below.) In contrast to sentences that involve multiple pairwise relationships and singular they such as

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:

which are apparent because they do not also work with a generic he:

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

Use with a generic noun as antecedent

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

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.[94] 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,[95] or vice versa.[96]

Usage guidance in British–American style guides

The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing by Casey Miller and Kate Swift was first published in the United States. Because of differences in culture and vocabulary, separate British editions have since been published. These authors accept or recommend singular uses of they not just in cases where there is an element of semantic plurality expressed by a word such as "everyone" but also where an indeterminate person is referred to, citing examples of such usage even in formal speech. For instance, they quote Ronald Reagan:

In addition to use of singular they, they – and others – also suggest a number of ways to avoid "the pronoun problem" in gender-neutral writing. One strategy is to rewrite the sentence to use a plural they. For instance, in a newspaper story

could have been changed to

Another strategy is to eliminate the pronoun; so

becomes

Other methods of avoiding gender preference include recasting a sentence to use "one", or (for babies) "it".[100]

Usage guidance in American style guides

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

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

and apparently regrets the resistance by the American language community:

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

In the 14th edition (1993) of The Chicago Manual of Style, the University of Chicago Press explicitly recommended use of singular use of 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."[103] From the 15th edition, this was changed. In Chapter 5 of the 16th edition, now written by Bryan A. Garner, the recommendations are:

"The singular they. A singular antecedent requires a singular referent pronoun. Because he is no longer accepted as a generic pronoun referring to a person of either sex, it has become common in speech and in informal writing to substitute the third-person plural pronouns they, them, their, and themselves, and the nonstandard singular themself. While this usage is accepted in casual context, it is still considered ungrammatical in formal writing."[104]

and

"Gender bias ... On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he in reference to no one in particular). On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers (often different readers) either to resort to non-traditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers."[94]

According to The American Heritage Book of English Usage, 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:

  • "Most of the Usage Panel rejects the use of they with singular antecedents as ungrammatical, even in informal speech. Eighty-two percent find the sentence The typical student in the program takes about six years to complete their course work unacceptable ... panel members seem to make a distinction between singular nouns, such as the typical student and a person, and pronouns that are grammatically singular but semantically plural, such as anyone, everyone and no one. Sixty-four percent of panel members accept the sentence No one is willing to work for those wages anymore, are they?"[105]

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association explicitly reject the use of singular they and gives the following example as "incorrect" usage:

while also specifically taking the position that generic he is unacceptable. The APA recommends using he or she, recasting the sentence with a plural subject to allow correct use of they, or simply rewriting the sentence to avoid issues with gender or number.[106]

Strunk & White, the authors of The Elements of Style find use of they with a singular antecedent unacceptable:

"They. Not to be used when the antecedent is a distributive expression, such as each, each one. everybody, every one, many a man. Use the singular pronoun. ... A similar fault is the use of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody, anyone, somebody, someone [... ] The use of he as pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. "

Their assessment, in 1979, was

"He has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances. ... It has no pejorative connotation; it is never incorrect."[107]

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".[108]

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

"Although some experts accept they, them, and their with singular indefinite words, most do not, and many teachers and employers regard the plural as incorrect. To be safe, work for agreement between singular indefinite words and the pronouns that refer to them [... ]"

It recommends using he or she or avoiding the problem by rewriting the sentence to use a plural or omit the pronoun.[109]

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) maintains that singular they is incorrect:

"Remember: the words everybody, anybody, anyone, each, neither, nobody, someone, a person, etc. are singular and take singular pronouns."[110]

The Washington Post style manual, 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".[69]

Usage guidance in British style guides

In the first edition of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (published in 1926) it is stated that singular they is disapproved of by grammarians and should be avoided in favour of the generic he. Examples of its use by eminent writers are given, but it is suggested that "few good modern writers would flout [grammarians] so conspicuously as Fielding and Thackeray", whose sentences are described as having an "old-fashioned sound".[21]

In the second edition of Fowler's, Fowler's Modern English Usage (edited by Sir Ernest Gowers and published in 1965), it is stated that singular they is disapproved of by grammarians and, while common in colloquial speech, should preferably be avoided in favour of the generic he in prose. Numerous examples of its use by eminent writers are given, but it is still suggested that "few good modern writers would flout [grammarians] so conspicuously as Fielding and Thackeray".[111]

According to the third edition of Fowler's (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 ignored the evidence:

"Over the centuries, writers of standing have used they, their, and them with anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun, and the practice has continued in the 20C. to the point that, traditional grammarians aside, such constructions are hardly noticed any more or are not widely felt to lie in a prohibited zone. Fowler (1926) disliked the practice ... and gave a number of unattributed 'faulty' examples ... The evidence presented in the OED points in another direction altogether."[18]

The Complete Plain Words was originally written in 1948 by Sir 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".[112]

A new edition of Plain Words, revised and updated by Sir Ernest Gowers' 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

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

by using a plural construction:

The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2004) finds singular they "unremarkable":

"For those listening or reading, it has become unremarkable—an element of common usage.[114]

It expresses several preferences.

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

as "scrambled syntax that people adopt because they cannot bring themselves to use a singular pronoun".[115]

New Hart's Rules 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 but—like The Chicago Manual of Style—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.

"... it is now regarded ... as old-fashioned or sexist to use he in reference to a person of unspecified sex, as in every child needs to know that he is loved. The alternative he or she is often preferred, and in formal contexts probably the best solution, but can become tiresome or long-winded when used frequently. Use of they in this sense (everyone needs to feel that they matter) is becoming generally accepted both in speech and in writing, especially where it occurs after an indefinite pronoun such as everyone or someone, but should not be imposed by an editor if an author has used he or she consistently."[116]

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."[117]

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.[118]

Usage guidance in English grammars

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

"The pronoun they is commonly used as a 3rd person singular pronoun that is neutral between masculine and feminine.... At one time restricted to informal usage. it is now increasingly accepted in formal usage, especially in [American English].[96]

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.[4]

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

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 that everyone (since only the latter implies a plural set).[4]

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

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

"this avoidance of he can't be dismissed just as a matter of political correctness. The real problem with using he is that it unquestionably colours the interpretation, sometimes inappropriately... he doesn't have a genuinely sex-neutral sense".[119]

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

or even "flatly ungrammatical", as in

"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

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:

In other words, in the Shakespeare quotation a mother is syntactically singular but stands for all mothers,[49] 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.[121] Such use, which goes back a long way, includes examples where the sex is known, as in the above examples.[122]

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.

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.[lower-alpha 2]

Referential and non-referential anaphors

According to the traditional analysis, English personal pronouns (e.g. his, her, their) are typically used to refer backward (or forward) within a sentence to a noun phrase (which may be a simple noun). This reference is called an anaphoric reference, and the referring pronoun is termed an anaphor.[lower-alpha 3][124]

The so-called singular they is morphologically plural, and is accompanied by a plural verb. However, it is often used in circumstances where an indeterminate antecedent is signified by an indefinite singular antecedent; for example,

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:[125]

Linguists like Pinker and 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.[126] He suggests that pronouns used as "variables" in this way are more appropriately regarded as homonyms of the equivalent referential pronouns.[127]

The word reference is traditionally used in two different senses:

  1. the relationship between an anaphor (e.g. a pronoun) and its antecedent;
  2. the relationship between a noun phrase and the real-world entity (the referent).[125]

With a morphologically singular antecedent, there are a number of possibilities.[125] The following shows different types of anaphoric reference, using various pronouns, including they:

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".[128]

Comparison with other pronouns

The singular and plural use of they can be compared with the pronoun you, which originally was only plural, but by about 1700 replaced thou for singular referents,[114] while retaining the plural verb form. 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.[129] Similar to singular "you", its singular reflexive pronoun ("ourself") is different from the plural reflexive pronoun ("ourselves").

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Especially in British English, such collective nouns can be followed by a plural verb and a plural pronoun; in American English such collective nouns are more usually followed by a singular verb and a singular pronoun.[86]
  2. ↑ "Either the plural or the singular may be acceptable for a true bound pronoun ...": "Every student thinks she / they is / are smart."[123]
  3. ↑ The more usual case, where the pronoun follows the antecedent, it is called a retrospective anaphor. The less usual case, where the pronoun precedes the antecedent (as in the sentence "When he saw the damage, the headmaster called the police.") [example from cited source] is called an anticipatory anaphor. Some writers use the term anaphor only for retrospective anaphors and use the term cataphor for anticipatory anaphors. The word endophor may also be used for both.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Swan 2009, §528.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Huddleston & Pullum 2002, p. 493.
  3. ↑ Pullum 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Huddleston & Pullum 2002, p. 494.
  5. 1 2 Merriam-Webster 2002, p. 731.
  6. ↑ Fowler 1996, p. 777.
  7. ↑ Fowler 2015, pp. 811–812.
  8. ↑ Hislop 1984, p. 23.
  9. ↑ Fowler 1996, p. 776, themself.
  10. ↑ Canadian government 2015.
  11. ↑ Canadian government 2013, p. 18.
  12. ↑ Canadian government 2014, p. 48.
  13. ↑ Fowler 2015, p. 814.
  14. ↑ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 493–494.
  15. ↑ American Heritage Dictionaries 1996, p. 178.
  16. ↑ Gerner 2000, pp. 111–112.
  17. ↑ Chesterfield 1759, p. 568.
  18. 1 2 3 Fowler 1996, p. 779.
  19. ↑ Ruskin 1866, p. 44.
  20. ↑ Bagehot 1910.
  21. 1 2 Fowler 1926, p. 648.
  22. 1 2 Fowler 1996, p. 358.
  23. ↑ Huxley 1868.
  24. 1 2 Baskervill 1895, §409.
  25. ↑ Cable 1879.
  26. ↑ UNO 1948.
  27. ↑ Thackeray 1868, p. 66.
  28. ↑ Curzan 2003, p. 77.
  29. ↑ Thackeray 1869, p. 189.
  30. 1 2 Baskervill 1895, §410.
  31. ↑ Caxton 1489, p. 39.
  32. ↑ Caxton 1483, p. 11.
  33. 1 2 Bodine 1975, p. 133.
  34. ↑ Fisher 1750.
  35. ↑ Ostade 2000.
  36. 1 2 3 4 5 Baskervill 1895, §411.
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  38. ↑ Austen 1814, p. 195.
  39. ↑ Defoe 1816, p. 200.
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  47. ↑ Leonard 1929, p. 225.
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  60. ↑ Fowler 2015, p. 372.
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  62. ↑ Coleridge, Samuel (1895). Anima Poetae: From the Unpublished Note-books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. London, England: William Heinemann. p. 190 – via Collections of Harvard University.
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  66. ↑ Safire 1985, pp. 46–47.
  67. ↑ Badendyck 1985.
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  73. 1 2 Abadi 2016.
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  83. 1 2 3 4 5 Garner 2003, p. 175.
  84. 1 2 Huddleston & Pullum 2002, p. 1458.
  85. ↑ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, p. 1473.
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  106. ↑ APA 2001, p. 47.
  107. ↑ Strunk & White 1979, p. 60.
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  110. ↑ Purdue OWL.
  111. ↑ Fowler 1965, p. 635.
  112. ↑ Gowers 1973, p. 140.
  113. ↑ Gowers 2014, pp. 210–213.
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  116. ↑ OUP 2012, p. 27.
  117. ↑ Washington Post 2011.
  118. ↑ Federation Press 2014.
  119. 1 2 3 , Huddleston & Pullum 2005, p. 104.
  120. ↑ Shakespeare 1599, p. 105.
  121. ↑ Merriam-Webster 2002, p. 736.
  122. ↑ Merriam-Webster 2002, pp. 735–736.
  123. ↑ Huang 2009, p. 144.
  124. ↑ Huddleston & Pullum 2002, pp. 1455–1456.
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  127. ↑ Pinker 1995, p. 379.
  128. ↑ Foertsch & Gernsbacher 1997.
  129. ↑ Chris Collins, Paul Martin Postal, Imposters: A Study of Pronominal Agreement (2012, ISBN 0262016885)

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