{"id":1943,"date":"2015-06-02T13:04:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T19:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:58:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T16:58:52","slug":"how-can-they-be-singular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/pronouns\/how-can-they-be-singular\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can They<\/em> Be Singular?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which of the following sentences is incorrect: A) It\u2019s enough to drive anyone out of his senses. <\/em>B) It\u2019s enough to drive anyone out of his or her senses. <\/em>C)\u00a0It\u2019s enough to drive anyone<\/em> out of their senses.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those who consider themselves \u201cold school\u201d would likely consider C incorrect: their<\/em> is plural but its antecedent, anyone<\/em>, is singular. Most traditionalists would consider B the best sentence (despite the clunky his or her<\/em>), although they would reluctantly accept A also.<\/p>\n

We consider ourselves traditionalists too. But after looking long and hard at the overwhelming evidence, we cannot in good conscience say that C is incorrect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s enough to drive anyone out of their senses\u201d was written by the celebrated playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw. But Shaw was no outlier when it came to the so-called \u201csingular they.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Oscar Wilde: \u201cExperience is the name everybody gives to their mistakes.\u201d Henry Fielding: \u201cEvery Body fell a laughing, as how could they help it?\u201d Shakespeare: \u201cGod send everyone their heart\u2019s desire.\u201d The King James Bible: \u201cIn lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even despite these eminent writers\u2019 words, we know that many of you are adamant that the plural pronoun they<\/em> and its variants should never be used with singular antecedents. Perhaps you will reconsider after hearing from the language scholars.<\/p>\n

\u2022 From A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage <\/em>(1957) by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans: \u201cThe use of they <\/em>in speaking of a single individual is not a modern deviation from classical English. It is found in the works of many great writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 British editor Tom Freeman: \u201cSingular \u2018they\u2019 is over 600 years old, going back into Middle English. Great writers have used it, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Austen, Defoe, Byron, Thackeray and Shaw.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The<\/em> American Heritage Dictionary<\/em>: \u201cWriters who choose to use they<\/em> with a singular antecedent should rest assured that they are in good company\u2014even if a fair number of traditionalists still wince at the usage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The irascible Tom Chivers, writing in London\u2019s daily\u00a0Telegraph<\/em>: \u201cIf someone tells you that singular \u2018they\u2019 is wrong, you can firmly tell them to go to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

So do we recommend the singular they<\/em>? In fact we loathe it. You will never see the singular they<\/em> in our blog posts. We stand with the English scholar Paul Brians, who says in Common Errors in English Usage<\/em>: \u201cIt is wise to shun this popular pattern in formal writing.\u201d And we admire the passion of the writer Jen Doll: \u201cEvery time I see a singular they<\/em>, my inner grammatical spirit aches \u2026 The singular they<\/em> is ear-hurting, eye-burning, soul-ravaging, mind-numbing syntactic folly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes. The singular they<\/em> might not be incorrect, but \u201cnot incorrect\u201d is no one\u2019s idea of an impressive credential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which of the following sentences is incorrect: A) It\u2019s enough to drive anyone out of his senses. B) It\u2019s enough to drive anyone out of his or her senses. C)\u00a0It\u2019s enough to drive anyone out of their senses. Those who consider themselves \u201cold school\u201d would likely consider C incorrect: their is plural but its antecedent, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,26,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pronouns","category-singular-vs-plural","category-subject-and-verb-agreement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}