LINGUISTICS

Copyright: lamaip

English has pronouns, like most languages do (if not all). Recently, and this is sort of absurd, this has become a political issue in the U.S. culture wars, to the point where there’s even a dating app that champions “no pronouns” as a selling point to conservatives (to be sure, you can’t speak English, or any language, without pronouns…):

Here, I focus only on the 3rd person pronoun They/Them/Their in English. The issue of pronoun usage in this country has gone off the rails in unfortunate ways (aforementioned dating app being a case in point), and making sense of the entire picture likely deserves a book-length treatment.

The “problem” with They/Them/Their is that these are “supposed to be” plural pronouns (referring to two or more individuals). Nonetheless, non-binary identifying people have co-opted these pronouns as referring in the singular. This makes sense, since They/Them/Their is gender neutral — when you use this pronoun, you don’t presuppose whether the group you’re referring to is man or woman; you can refer to a non-binary identifying individual as “they” provided this is one of their chosen pronouns to be referred to with.

But what do we do about the plurality of “they”? Surely, if someone says “they’re going to be late,” we must conclude that there is a plurality of individuals being referred to who will be late … and here come the complaints about the problematic “singular ‘they’” as a justification for pushing/fighting back on respecting people’s chosen pronouns. The usual complaint is something along the lines of “That’s just ungrammatical!”

The simple fact of the matter, which makes “They/Them/Their” an excellent choice for non-binary individuals, is that this pronoun has actually been used as a singular pronoun since Middle English in the 14th century. Singular “they” is/has been more grammatical than you may think!

Singular “They” has existed in English for centuries. The earliest attestation is from 1375 in the poem “William the Werewolf.” It is most naturally used when the gender or identity of the (singular) individual it refers to is unknown. It has, in fact, and frequently too, been used by the English Language’s greatest authors. For example, here is a quote from William Shakespeare (A Comedy of Errors), where the possessive plural pronoun “Their” picks the singular “a man” up as its antecedent (a singular use of “they”):

“There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend”

Also , from Jane Austen (Mansfield Park):

“I would have everybody marry if they could do it properly,”

“Everybody” is singular. (“Everybody is here” not “Everybody are here”). No loss of clarity or communication is suffered in either of these examples of singular “they.” The authors I mentioned are old literature, but this is also a living/current part of English. If the gender or identity of the antecedent is unknown or irrelevant, singular “they” pops up easily — here’s an example I just thought up that sounds 100% like natural normal English:

“Someone left their car unlocked, they must not care if it gets stolen.”

This is also arguably more natural and euphonious than what some would say we should do in such scenarios: use “he/she” or “he or she.” (how clunky can we be in avoiding a basic grammatical feature of English, namely, singular “they,” that helps communication and is, quite honestly, aesthetically better than this clunky proferred disjunction?)

Even complainers use singular “they” as they complain about it —

First, listen to Ben Shapiro’s rant on pronouns (if you have the patience — he’s wrong about every point, and Merriam Webster is right…):

Then, witness him using singular “they” quite naturally in a tweet:

There are many more examples of this from Ben Shapiro — but I don’t have the patience to dig through the internets right now to find them. I strongly suspect in fact that there’s even a meme out there where he’s literally complaining about singular “they” and even uses it in the same tweet!

There is no reason to worry about singular “they”. English is a living language. Singular “they” has been in the language at least since the 14th century. Living languages change too… “you” used to be a polite singular historically, but changed to be number neutral in standard modern English (though some dialects of English have introduced a distinction between singular “you” and plural “y’all” or “yinz” even…). “Thou” used to be a pronoun in English, but no longer.

Language changes over time, this is true for any living language (and we should be thankful English is still alive, and changing!). Only dead languages stop changing over time. Please don’t kill English.

You don’t have to worry about language change. Respecting your fellow man (Or should I say, “person”) is just basic respect and decency. It’s not that hard to refer to someone by their chosen pronouns, unless of course, you want to disrespect them.

By all means, continue to be exclusive and refuse to learn how language works, and how basic human decency works on the day to day. If that’s your schtick — you sound scared and desperate, and that’s sad. I offer you thoughts and prayers. (Especially since I have faith in people, and the pronoun people will win this war.)

But please do not appeal to grammar in justifying your toxic attitudes. Grammar is not on your side. You are wrong about how grammar justifies racism, classism, homophobia, or any fear of the “other,” where the “other” is non-white, non-cis, non-male, non-American. You’re very wrong, and us linguists will point that out. Leave language alone.

I myself am a cis-white-ish male identifying person, but as a linguist who has many non-binary friends, I feel it is my responsibility to opine on the pronouns issue because it strikes me as absurd. You can be racist and bigoted and sexist (though you shouldn’t be), but please don’t do stupid things like pretend that English doesn’t have pronouns in defending your toxic attitudes. Grow up and wise up.

If you’re a conservative cis man, your pronouns are most likely he/him/his, and if you’re a conservative cis woman, your pronouns are most likely she/her/hers. You have pronouns. Good luck avoiding them. And you will use singular they on the daily, even if you hate it. Grow up. It’s just normal English.

As a linguist, what I’ve written here is not in my wheelhouse, though if you’re curious to learn more about how language works and issues related to the grammar of pronouns, I should point you to Dr. Conrod’s Blog, which more directly engages with issues of pronoun usage in present day spoken English: https://medium.com/@kconrod.