It vs. They
'It' and 'they' are both personal pronouns. If you want to know what are their uses and functions under different circumstances, don't waste another second!
What are their main differences?
'It' and 'they' are both personal pronouns in English. Their most obvious difference is that 'it' is a singular pronoun, and 'they' is a plural one.
'They'
'They' is a subject pronoun used to refer to two or more people or things that have already been mentioned or are already known about. We can use 'they' to refer to:
- People
- Animals
- Non-human but living things (like plants, reefs etc.)
- Non-human and non-living things (books, chairs, etc.)
Let us take a look at some exampels:
I hope
Plural-Only Nouns
For nouns that always come in plural but they are actually one thing, for instance, pants, glasses, trousers, etc. do not use it. You should use 'they.'
I bought a pair of pants.
Tip!
Although, using 'it' for these special nouns is considered wrong, but you might hear someone saying a sentence like:
I bought a pair of pants.
It is grammatically wrong, but used anyway.
Collective Nouns
If you want to refer to company names like Microsoft or Mcdonald's, you might think, that since companies are made up of more than one person, the correct choice is 'they'. But it can go either way. Compare these sentence:
McDonald's
When referring to a collective noun by 'they' we are referring to the people working in there.
McDonald's
When referring to a collective noun by 'it' we are referring to the company or organization as a unit.
Now, look at these examples:
I found a great restaurant.
Here, we want to mention the people working there.
I found a great restaurant.
Here, we are referring to the restaurant as a single entity.
Singular 'They'
Nowadays, due to the new revolutionary awareness about gender, in modern English, if we want to refer to only one person, but we do not want to or don’t know the gender, instead of using 'he/she' or 's(he)' or 'he or she', we simply can use 'they'.
Every child deserves an education.
'It'
'It' is both a subject pronoun and an object pronoun. We can use 'it' to refer to:
- A Non-human but living thing (like plant, tree, etc.)
- A Non-human and non-living thing (book, chair, etc.)
Referring to One Thing
If you want to refer to only one thing, do not use 'they'. Use 'it'.
I watched Lord of the Rings movies several time.
She loves ice cream.
Subject and Object
Dummy Subject
'It' can also be used as a dummy subject of a sentence when you are talking about the weather, the time, the distance, etc.
Is
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