| Singular They |
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Have you ever seen someone while they are on top of Singular ''they'' has become more common in informal Speech , and is gaining acceptance in formal use. USE It is commonly assumed that this use 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 {Link without Title} make '''theymselfe''' redy.'' — William Caxton , ''The foure sonnes of Aymon'', i. 39, ca. 1489 OED2 (Simpson and Weiner 1989), lemma "themselves". : ''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. {Link without Title} Hark, how
I would have everybody marry if :''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 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 Few people today would easily use ''he'' where Shaw used ''they,'' but according to traditional grammar, phrases like ''no man'' and ''no one'' are grammatically singular and therefore a pronominal coreferent must be singular. 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 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 , 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
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 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. 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. 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
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