They
Encyclopedia
They ð is the
third-person
plural
personal pronoun
(subjective case
) in Modern English
.
is the use of this pronoun as a gender-neutral
singular
rather than as a plural pronoun. The correctness of this usage is disputed.
The singular pronoun they is even found in formal or official texts. For example, a 2008 amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code contains the following text:
Which contrasts, for example, with subsection 252(2):
In an article published in The New York Times
Magazine by Patricia T. O'Conner
and Stewart Kellerman, they read:
and accusative case
). It was gradually replaced by an Old Norse
borrowing, þeir (nominative plural masculine of the demonstrative, which acted in Old Norse as a plural pronoun), until it was entirely replaced in around the 1400s in Middle English
. Þeir, in turn, became they as it is known in Modern English today. Þeir originates from Proto-Germanic
*þai-z ("those"), from Proto-Indo-European
*toi ("those").
third-person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
personal pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
(subjective case
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
) in Modern English
Modern English
Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550.Despite some differences in vocabulary, texts from the early 17th century, such as the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, are considered to be in Modern...
.
Usage
The "singular" theySingular they
Singular they is the use of they to refer to an entity that is not plural, or not necessarily plural. Though singular they is widespread in everyday English and has a long history of usage, debate continues about its acceptability...
is the use of this pronoun as a gender-neutral
Gender-neutral
Gender neutrality describes the idea that language and other social institutions should avoid distinguishing people by their gender, in order to avoid discrimination arising from the impression that there are social roles for which one gender is more suited than the other...
singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
rather than as a plural pronoun. The correctness of this usage is disputed.
The singular pronoun they is even found in formal or official texts. For example, a 2008 amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code contains the following text:
if a peace officer has reasonable grounds to believe that, because of their physical condition, a person may be incapable of providing a breath sample... (subparagraph 254(3)(a)(ii))
Which contrasts, for example, with subsection 252(2):
...evidence that an accused failed to stop his vehicle... and give his name and address is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, proof of an intent to escape civil or criminal liability.
In an article published in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Magazine by Patricia T. O'Conner
Patricia T. O'Conner
Patricia T. O’Conner is the author of five books about the English language. A former editor at the New York Times Book Review, she appears monthly on WNYC as the language maven for the Leonard Lopate Show...
and Stewart Kellerman, they read:
Anne Fisher (1719-78) [an 18th-century British schoolmistress and the first woman to write an English grammar book] was not only a woman of letters but also a prosperous entrepreneur. She ran a school for young ladies and operated a printing business and a newspaper in Newcastle with her husband, Thomas Slack. In short, she was the last person you would expect to suggest that he should apply to both sexes. But apparently she couldn’t get her mind around the idea of using they as a singular.
...
Meanwhile, many great writers — Byron, AustenJane AustenJane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, ThackerayThackerayThackeray is the name of:*William Makepeace Thackeray, a novelist*Bal Thackeray, an Indian politician*Edward Talbot Thackeray, a recipient of the Victoria Cross*A David Thackeray, a South African astronomer...
, EliotGeorge EliotMary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
, Dickens, TrollopeAnthony TrollopeAnthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
and more — continued to use they and company as singulars, never mind the grammarians. In fact, so many people now use they in the old singular way that dictionaries and usage guides are taking a critical look at the prohibition against it. R. W. BurchfieldRobert BurchfieldRobert William Burchfield CNZM CBE was a scholar, writer, and lexicographer.Born in Wanganui, New Zealand, he studied at Wanganui Technical College and Victoria University in Wellington...
, editor of The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, has written that it’s only a matter of time before this practice becomes standard English: “The process now seems irreversible.” Merriam-WebsterMerriam-WebsterMerriam–Webster, which was originally the G. & C. Merriam Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, is an American company that publishes reference books, especially dictionaries that are descendants of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language .Merriam-Webster Inc. has been a...
’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) already finds the singular they acceptable “even in literary and formal contexts,” but the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English LanguageThe American Heritage Dictionary of the English LanguageThe American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is an American dictionary of the English language published by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969...
(4th ed.) isn’t there yet.
Etymology
In Old English, hīe was used as the third-person, personal pronoun (in the nominativeNominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
and accusative case
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
). It was gradually replaced by an Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
borrowing, þeir (nominative plural masculine of the demonstrative, which acted in Old Norse as a plural pronoun), until it was entirely replaced in around the 1400s in Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
. Þeir, in turn, became they as it is known in Modern English today. Þeir originates from Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic language
Proto-Germanic , or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Germanic languages, such as modern English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish.The Proto-Germanic language is...
*þai-z ("those"), from Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*toi ("those").
See also
- English personal pronounsEnglish personal pronounsThe personal pronouns in the English language can have various forms according to gender, number, person, and case. Modern English is a language with very little noun or adjective inflection, to the point where some authors describe it as analytic, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns...
- Generic antecedents
- Objective pronoun
- Possessive pronounPossessive pronounA possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...
- Subjective pronoun
- ThemThemThem or THEM may refer to:*Them, the English third person accusative plural personal pronoun; see English personal pronouns* Them, Denmark, a town in Silkeborg municipality* Them , an Northern Irish rock band featuring Van Morrison...