They, Singular or Plural

grammatical gender subject pronouns they

Gender Awareness Revolution

After the gender awareness revolution took place in the early 1900s, some people do not consider themselves as 'he' or 'she'. They are called non-binary people.
Most of the non-binary people chose to be called 'they'. But is not the pronoun 'they' supposed to be a plural third-person pronoun?

The Singular 'They'

The singular 'they' is the newest arrival in the world of English pronouns. Its purpose is to be a gender-neutral third-person pronoun in English.
As you might have known already, we had 'he' to refer to male persons and animals and 'she' to refer to female persons and animals.

What Was Used Before The Singular 'They'?

Before the introduction of the singular 'they', if we wanted to refer to people in general or if we didn't know the person was male or female, we used 'he', which was a problem from a feminist point of view.
Therefore, now we have a better alternative: we have the singular 'they' to help us use language that includes men and women equally.

When Can We Use The Singular 'They'?

We use the singular 'they' to refer to:

a generic person with unknown or unidentified gender

a specific, known person who explicitly prefers 'they' as their pronoun

Example

If anyone says a word, they'll regret it.

The doctor is not to blame. They are only doing their job.

The Singular 'They': Plural or Singular Verb?

When 'they' is the subject of a sentence, whether it is the singular 'they' or plural 'they', you must use plural verbs. Never say or write 'they is.' Always use 'are' with this pronoun.

Comments

(1)

Daniel Balsinha

Apr 2025

They are from our class!

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Gender Awareness Revolution
The Singular 'They'
What Was Used Before The Singular 'They'?
When Can We Use The Singular 'They'?

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We vs. They

'We are the working class.' 'They are the upper class'. We use 'we' to refer to a group we feel belonged to and use 'they' when we feel a social distance.

Singular They: Is or Are

'Singular they' is a relatively new personal pronoun that has been introduced in modern English. It's singular, but are we suppose to use singular verbs or not?

They vs. Them

'They' and 'them' are both third-person plural pronouns and refer to plural nouns. But what is their main difference? Let's find out!

They vs. Their

'They' and 'them' are both refer to a group of people, but they function differently in a sentence because they take different grammatical roles.

They vs. These or Those

'These' and 'Those' are called plural demonstratives. We use them as determiners and pronouns. But are they interchangeable with the plural pronoun 'they'?

This vs. That

'This' and 'that' are singular demonstratives. 'This' is used to point to a noun being close to us and 'that' is used to refer to something far from us.

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