Singular ‘they’

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2020 was pandemic. But that’s a no-brainer. Let’s talk about something more controversial. And more telling about how language is evolving to reflect the changes in the world we live in. A world that’s more about the choices we make and the shift in the way we see things. Singular they.

I still remember how excited I was to read from an article online* that English had finally welcomed the use of the singular they. At least, the Washington Post made it official. That was in 2015. And then in January 2016, the American Dialect Society named they as “used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun” as their 2015 Word of the Year. 

* Unfortunately, I can’t find the exact article I read back then.

Fast forward to 2021, researching this topic, I see a headline from the APA website that reads: Welcome, singular “they” (Oct 2019). And guess what? In December 2019, Merriam-Webster announced that the personal pronoun they was the 2019 Word of the Year. Gosh, I thought the welcome party had left six years ago.

Why this late?

I’ll take you through a quick history of singular they, and then we’ll look at the reasons why the shift in the use of this pronoun has been met with controversy—and why it matters that we talk about it.

What is singular they?

Searches for they increased by 313% in 2019 compared to the year before, according to Merriam-Webster. And in September that year, a new sense (3d) was added to its definition:

Senses 3a and 3b have been used in everyday conversation without drawing any attention. It’s easier to say “they” than “he or she” when we don’t know the gender of the person we are talking about. Sense 3c is obvious with the intention of concealing a person’s identity. But the last one? That’s the one that represents the big shift that our society has taken in the last few years.

A person who identifies as nonbinary “expresses a gender identity that is neither entirely male nor entirely female” (Merriam-Webster). Alternative terms are genderqueer and genderfluid, among others.

Nonbinary people may use the pronouns they, them, their, and themself—or any of the neopronouns starting to proliferate online.

The welcome party was late by at least 600 years

The singular they has been around for hundreds of years. BBC cited Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599), and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1386) to have already used the singular they to describe a person’s features. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, singular they can be traced back to 1375, in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. That’s from more than 600 years ago.

But this singular use of the pronoun they could have existed much earlier. As Oxford points out:

Since forms may exist in speech long before they’re written down, it’s likely that singular they was common even before the late fourteenth century. That makes an old form even older.

Although grammarians in the eighteenth century took notice of this use and considered it an error because they was a plural pronoun that required a plural antecedent, singular they has prevailed in spoken language. Like when we scream, “Did you see what they just did?” when complaining about a stranger we can’t identify. We don’t really bother to say “he or she” in such situations, do we?

Also, they is not the first plural pronoun to become singular. According to Oxford:

You functioned as a polite singular for centuries, but in the seventeenth century singular you replaced thou, thee, and thy, except for some dialect use.

Like singular they now, that change faced some resistance. Teachers corrected students who used singular you, even though the teachers themselves used singular you just the same when no one was looking.

Singular you has become normal and unremarkable. Also unremarkable are the royal we and, in countries without a monarchy, the editorial we: first-person plurals used regularly as singulars and nobody calling anyone an idiot and a fool. And singular they is well on its way to being normal and unremarkable as well. Toward the end of the twentieth century, language authorities began to approve the form. The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) not only accepts singular they, they also use the form in their definitions. And the New Oxford American Dictionary (Third Edition, 2010), calls singular they ‘generally accepted’ with indefinites, and ‘now common but less widely accepted’ with definite nouns, especially in formal contexts.

Then why the controversy?

If singular they has been in use for centuries, why has it caused so much controversy? TIME has an entire article to answer this question, and it’s quite enlightening.

I have summarized the main points here:

• Pronouns are at the core of language that when rules about how to use them change, it’s like one part or another of that language will fall apart. Basically, suddenly using a pronoun you’ve known to be plural all your life as singular can make you feel uneasy.
• New protocols have been introduced that some people just find to be too much. At many schools and conferences, people are now asked about what pronouns they use—because assuming another person’s gender and using inappropriate pronouns, as our society has begun to recognize, is not right.
• It’s confusing in terms of what verbs to use with the singular they. Is it “they is” or “they are”? But also, to some, it simply sounds weird when the subject is clearly a single person!

I don’t know if you appreciate it, but seeing where the objections are coming from after listing down the issues in simple bullet points like that, my first thought was: Wow, so these are all very petty!

It’s natural to feel uneasy when we have to accommodate changes, especially in something so fundamental as the rules of language, but we should recognize that it’s just about that and continue to move forward.

And we must remember that language never stops evolving. Language is a tool we use to communicate with others and express our ideas. If the members of a society where we use a particular language are no longer represented by existing concepts and vocabulary, they do not bend to conform to the language. Language expands or takes on new forms to include them. The rules change based on the forms of life they represent. Not the other way around.

And why does it matter?

Adding a new definition to a word is changing the rules of a language. The word no longer refers to just this or that. Its role in the language has evolved. And it can do more (or fewer) things than it used to.

Think of the knight piece in the game of chess. The rule book says it can move in an L shape and is the only piece that can jump over other pieces. Now imagine this being added to the list of things it can do: A knight can also move any number of squares diagonally. You see how the rules of the game have changed?

But also consider this: perhaps the rules changed because the actual way people played chess had changed?

So what really matters here is not that a new definition has been added to a word in the dictionary. What we should be celebrating is what prompted this change. After all, language is a reflection of the current state of affairs in the world we are in. And the updated definition of the very old pronoun they is a reflection of how our society is becoming more inclusive and respectful of other people’s gender identity. Even though we’re not yet there, interest in the nonbinary sense of they suggests that people are becoming aware of the issues surrounding gender differences and this will, hopefully, pave the way to more inclusivity and equality in our society.

P.S.
In case you’re wondering, I identify as female and my pronouns are she, her, and herself.