In the olden days, it was accepted that references to he/his/him included women as well as men. Then we starting being expected to include women as well as men specifically in statements. However, it is clumsy to say things like:
- Every employee is expected to be at his or her desk by 9.00.
- It was every teen for himself/herself.
- When an employee gets hungry, s/he goes to the shop around the corner.
- If a member of the choir makes a mistake, he/she lifts his/her hand to show he/she knows about it, so the conductor does not have to stop and point it out to him/her.
Nowadays, we can use the singular forms of they, them, their, and themselves—to refer to subjects that are grammatically singular:
- Every employee is expected to be at their desk by 9.00.
- It was every teen for themselves
Since 2019, most major style guides—including the Associated Press, the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA style manual, and the APA style manual—have accepted the use of they instead he or she, s/he, etc. Merriam-Webster even designated the singular “they” as their 2019 Word of the Year.
Like singular you, singular they is treated as a grammatical plural and takes a plural verb. For example:
- When an employee gets hungry, they go to the shop around the corner.
- If a member of the choir makes a mistake, they lift their hand to show they know about it.
This subject was also discussed in a PEGforum thread Themself or themselves that started on Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 8:08 AM
Q: Does anyone out there have an opinion about the use of themselves/themselves in the following sentence?
‘On the one hand, the concept of informational privacy posits that a plaintiff themself determines which facts about them are private and the ambit, purpose, method, or conditions of their disclosure.’
A: Since 2018, Oxford has put its stamp of approval on the use of ‘themself’ as a gender-neutral singular reflexive pronoun, in line with the use of the singular ‘they’ and ‘them’. So in this context ‘themself’ would be correct together with the gender-neutral singular noun, ‘plaintiff’
Published Nov 26, 2022 at 07:00 and modified Jun 27, 2024 at 12:20
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