Consider this from Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3:
There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend
A lot of people would declare that his should be used instead of their, including some self-proclaimed grammar experts (I call them grammar terrorists).
I have been using the singular they occasionally, especially when I don’t want to specify the gender. For example, I might write:
Someone came up to me. I didn’t like the look on their face.
instead of:
Someone came up to me. I didn’t like the look on that person’s face.
In this case, there isn’t much difference. But if I continue on the narrative, the use of that person can become more cumbersome. Consider:
Someone came up to me. I didn’t like the look on that person’s face. Nor did I like the person’s smell, as I soon discovered.
which doesn’t read as smooth as:
Someone came up to me. I didn’t like the look on their face. Nor did I like their smell, as I soon discovered.
Don’t like it? Let me quote from Language Log (Shakespeare used they with singular antecedents so there):
By all means, avoid using they with singular antecedents in your own writing and speaking if you feel you cannot bear it. Language Log is not here to tell you how to write or speak. But don’t try to tell us that it’s grammatically incorrect. Because when a construction is clearly present several times in Shakespeare’s rightly admired plays and poems, and occurs in the carefully prepared published work of just about all major writers down the centuries, and is systematically present in the unreflecting conversational usage of just about everyone including Sean Lennon, then the claim that it is ungrammatical begins to look utterly unsustainable to us here at Language Log Plaza. This use of they isn’t ungrammatical, it isn’t a mistake, it’s a feature of ordinary English syntax that for some reason attracts the ire of particularly puristic pusillanimous pontificators, and we don’t buy what they’re selling.
I wish I knew this stuff when I was in secondary school - I definitely would have used the singular they in my next English composition, and hope that my English teacher would fall for my trap and put a bright red circle around my carefully-placed they, then we could have a heated argument where I would quote Shakespeare and the rest, and finally prove to them that I was indeed correct (as usual), and thus obnoxiously show my superiority over them.
Sometimes I wonder why so many of my teachers couldn’t stand me.
Your post intrigued me =) If i could add, the generic plural pronouns had been “they” and “them” till 18th/19th century, when a law in Great Old England made “he/him” the de facto generic pronoun. Not surprisingly, the law makers were almost exclusively men…
Comment by RChen — January 10, 2006 @ 2:26 am
thanx for the info. english is still struggling from the lack of a universally accepted 3rd person generic pronoun (unless it’s an animal). the one which some use which really bothers me is “s/he” - bleaghccchhh
Comment by tinkertailor — January 10, 2006 @ 11:51 am
=) It’s [i.e. s/he] used in academic writing (at least within the domain that I’m studying) so as to include women in the generic. One of the problems with using the male pronoun as the generic is that females are left to wonder if they are included in the context of, say, an instruction to a class of students: “If anyone is caught cheating, he will be immediately barred from the examinations.” Whether it’s grammatical or not is a slightly different, but nonetheless related issue: that of power relations.
Comment by RChen — January 12, 2006 @ 1:36 am
i’d use ‘they’ over ’s/he’ anytime.
“If anyone is caught cheating, they will be immediately barred from the examinations.”
Comment by tinkertailor — January 12, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Not to be pedantic, but the use of they as a singular requires that (here I quote http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html, see the section titled Conditions on the use of singular “there”) “what it refers to is semantically collective and/or generic and/or indefinite and/or unknown”. That does hold for the example from Shakespeare.
That’s why your example of “Someone came up to me” does not work, since that person, even if you choose not to reveal any further particulars, is no longer generic. In other words, only something along the lines of “Let someone come up to me. I’ll spit in their face.” could work.
Comment by iwong — January 13, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
thanx for the very interesting and informative link.
however, i have to disagree with churchyard (the website author) where he prescribes when the singular “their” cannot be used. here are my reasons:
- he gives no good reason for that rule. in fact, he didn’t give any reason at all! i don’t see where he got that rule from.
- at the end of that very section where he states the conditions, churchyard has a link to a steve pinker’s writings, which actually has an example that breaks the rule:
“Someone dropped by but they didn’t say what they wanted.”
the funny thing is, churchyard quotes extensively from pinker (whom he he seems to view favourably), so he should know that pinker is very much against the prescriptivist “language mavens”; but here, in prescribing those conditions, churchyard contradicts pinker.
Comment by tinkertailor — January 13, 2006 @ 10:43 pm
I must confess that you read the link far more carefully than I did! However, I must say that Churchyard did give a very good reason for his rule, even if not explicitly stated, and that is his compilation of relevant entries from the OED (http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html).
Nevertheless, your second objection is quite interesting to me. My gut instinct would be to say that the good Prof Pinker has erred in his enthusiasm to demonstrate the excellent pedigree of the plural pronoun used with singular antecedents. After all, the OED does specifically define somebody as (1a) “A person…”.
That said, his example is still vague enough to be understood as an undefined person. Imagine, if you will, coming back home to your flat and seeing a note from flatmate A saying “Someone dropped by looking for flatmate B”. You see flatmate B and say “Someone dropped by but they didn’t say what they wanted.”
Once again, not intending to quibble with your usage (I am merely absolutely fascinated by language as a dilettante), your own example seems to have taken the somebody from the realm of the generic into a person very real (and smelly).
Comment by iwong — January 14, 2006 @ 10:01 pm
really, my biggest complaint against churchyard’s rule is that it’s way too prescriptivist without logical grounds. i would think he’s reading too much into OED, since OED does not say when the singular “their” cannot be used (unless i overlooked something):
“Also so used instead of ‘his or her’, when the gender is inclusive or uncertain.”
i think it’s vague enough to accommodate my usage
i would have stood my ground even without pinker’s example (but his example sure helps!), and i disagree with your comments on pinker’s example.
looks like we’ll just have to disagree
but thanx for your response!
Comment by tinkertailor — January 16, 2006 @ 10:28 am
Well the OED merely lists examples of usage, and it is in no way prescriptivist. In fact, as I’m sure you’re aware, the OED is itself the ultimate descriptivist text.
So, while the OED doesn’t say that any particular usage is forbidden, it does show what has been used in the history of the language. Pinker’s rule, which you claim prescriptivist, is only a summary of the examples which the OED lists (unless you see an example in the OED which doesn’t fit with his “rule”, in which case I would fully retract this assertion).
So, if one day you become a great author and are cited in the OED with your particular usage of they, then I say great for you and I’ll be terribly proud of you! But until that day, I guess I’ll have to say that your example of ‘they’ seems to me rather peculiar and not attested to by any of the previous usages recorded in the OED.
:)
Comment by iwong — January 16, 2006 @ 10:58 pm
i think you got some stuff mixed up.
i’m saying churchyard is prescriptivist, not OED. OED is clearly descriptivist.
i do assert that churchyard’s (not pinker’s) rule is prescriptive - it isn’t just a summary of OED. churchyard goes beyond the OED, injecting his own perculiar interpretation and prescribes his own “rule”, going against the philosophy of OED as well as pinker.
yes, OED does not cite my usage (according to churchyard’s artificial boundaries), but as i quoted earlier from OED - “Also so used instead of ‘his or her’, when the gender is inclusive or uncertain.” - the description here, in my opinion and certainly pinker’s, allows for my usage (i’m using it “inclusively”).
i would say that churchyard’s rule is arbitrary and not a logical necessity from OED. thus i would have to reject it.
i feel like sending an email to churchyard to complain
Comment by tinkertailor — January 17, 2006 @ 10:32 am
Sorry I did get the bit about Pinker’s rule mixed up (and that it was indeed Churchyard’s rule).
In any case, you don’t explain how his rule is “arbitrary and not a logical necessity” and an expression of his “peculiar interpretation”. After all, his “rule” does is merely underline what all the examples in the OED have in common and it would be rather tedious to go through each citation in the OED to demonstrate that. You could convince me though if you could point out a citation which does not fall into his categories.
It’s great that you do mention a definition from the OED itself, that “Also so used instead of ‘his or her’, when the gender is inclusive or uncertain.” Now, in your example, though do correct me if I be mistaken, the person who came up to you is a specific person, and unless you’re speaking of someone whose gender is both (so to speak) or you cannot pinpoint for certain, I’m afraid you can’t be inclusive or uncertain respectively.
In any case, I’m far from being any sort of expert in language, and indeed I would be much obliged if you could put the good Dr (I presume?) Churchyard on the defensive then!
Comment by iwong — January 18, 2006 @ 3:14 am
I infer that Churchyard’s reason is grounded in pragmatics, that if the antecedent is a noun pharse like “John/Susan/The boy/girl,” then the singular “them” could not be use to refer to the antecedent. However, it is inadequate, since a definite/specific noun phrase can be ambiguous in a sense:
“The teacher should exert his/her/their authority in the classroom.”
whereby the sexual (read: biological) identity of the antecedent in this (limited) context is uncertain.
Back to the issue that tinkertailor brought up in the classroom usage of the singular “they/them/their,” I feel that a more prescriptive approach in the initial stages of language acquisition is more desired, where there is a need for learners of a language to grasp the “generalities” that occur in a language. Once the competency is there, issues and debate of prescription/description can be more meaningful and better appreciated. The problem is the fixation of right-ness/wrong-ness in language usage, when it is apparent that something that is considered “grammatically wrong” now could possibly become the accepted standard.
Comment by RChen — January 18, 2006 @ 5:45 am