He or She, or They – A Singular Conundrum

Source: Pixabay/Geralt CC0 Public Domain

In this age of Political Correctness (which in truth is a form of censorship) it is no longer considered appropriate to use the masculine pronoun ‘he’ when referring to a person of unknown gender. This has led many writers and speakers, myself included on occasion, to adopt the clumsy wording ‘he or she’ and its equally clumsy cousins ‘him or her’ and ‘his or hers’ when referring to someone whose gender is not known.

The issue, it seems, is that the English language has no good singular pronoun to use when describing a person of unknown gender, or so I thought, until I read the article, “‘They,’ the Singular Pronoun, Gets Popular,” by Ben Zimmer, published in the April 15, 2015 edition of The Wall Street Journal.[i]

According to Mr Zimmerman, the American Copy Editors Society has become more accepting of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. Mr Zimmerman goes on to point out “…that ‘they’ is more idiomatic than clunky alternatives that include both genders, as in ‘he or she,’ ‘he/she’ or ‘(s)he’.”[ii]

Other support, or perhaps it should be called affirmation, of the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun was reported by Jeff Guo of The Washington Post in his January 8, 2016 article, “Sorry, grammar nerds. The singular ‘they’ has been declared Word of the Year.”[iii]

In his article, Mr Guo reports that the “Singular ‘they,’ the gender-neutral pronoun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 linguists at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on January 7^th.” The word, according to the American Dialect Society, as reported in Mr Guo’s article, is a useful “…way to refer to people who don't want to be called ‘he’ or ‘she’."[iv] Mr Guo points out that The Washington Post is already using the singular ‘they’ and has included the word in that form in its Style Guide since 2015.

Mr Guo also quotes Ben Zimmerman, author of the previously referenced WSJ article, as saying at the meeting of the American Dialect Society, over which Mr Zimmerman presided, that people are already using the singular ‘they’ in everyday speech and how the use of the singular ‘they’ also fits well with the new paradigm of gender identity.[v]

Even National Public Radio has weighed in on the matter. In a transcript of a commentary heard on the NPR radio show, “Fresh Air,” on January 13, 2016 by Geoff Nunberg titled, “Everyone Uses Singular 'They,' Whether They Realize It Or Not,”[vi] Mr Nunberg also reports on the decision by the American Dialect Society to make the singular ‘they’ its Word of the Year. He also acknowledges the inclusion of the singular ‘they’ in The Washington Post’s 2015 Style Guide.

Mr Nunberg doesn’t stop with those to contemporary references, however. He points out how the singular ‘they’ also shows up in the works of such literary luminaries from the past as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, George Bernard Shaw, and Jane Austin.[vii] Mr Nunberg acknowledges there are, and have been critics of the singular ‘they’ since the Victorian Era when grammarians of that age insisted that ‘he’ stood for both sexes, or as they put it, “the masculine embraces the feminine.”[viii]

“That rule wasn't really discredited until the 1970s, when the second-wave feminists made the generic masculine the paradigm of sexism in language,” wrote Mr Nunberg.[ix]

While the singular ‘they’ is still frowned on by hardcore grammarians, most writers today are willing to use it rather than be stuck using an ungainly ‘he or she’ construct or offending gender neutral advocates by using the feminine embracing ‘he.’[x]

With this new knowledge of the growing acceptance of the singular ‘they,’ I will no longer clutter my writing with unnecessary double singulars like ‘he or she,’ nor will I count the use of the singular ‘they’ against my students when I grade their papers. They will be glad of that.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

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[i] Zimmer, Ben. "Can 'They' Be Accepted as a Singular Pronoun?" WSJ. The Wall Street Journal, 15 Apr. 2015. Web. 31 July 2016.

[ii] ibid

[iii] Guo, Jeff. "Sorry, Grammar Nerds. The Singular ‘they’ Has Been Declared Word of the Year." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 08 Jan. 2016. Web. 31 July 2016.

[iv] ibid

[v] ibid

[vi] Nunberg, Geoff. "Everyone Uses Singular 'They,' Whether They Realize It Or Not." NPR. NPR, 13 Jan. 2016. Web. 31 July 2016.

[vii] ibid

[viii] ibid

[ix] ibid

[x] ibid