Questions tagged [singular-they]
Questions about the use of “they”, “them”, “their”, “themself”, or “themselves” to refer to a singular animate antecedent of unspecified gender.
109 questions
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What seems more accurate "You and your kid discover their true capability" or "You and your kid discover his/her true capability"? [duplicate]
I have been asked to look at some old admission response forms that our school mails back to applying students. This letter consists of their test scores and the programs that is offered to them.
Now, ...
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“On their part” or “on their parts”?
They took credit with no contribution on their part/parts.
Should ‘part’ be singular or plural?
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How should I refer to a person without identifying them? Can I use 'one'? [closed]
If I wish to refer to an individual person but without describing that person or drawing attention to the characteristics of that person or without identifying that person - how should I do it ?
The ...
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How to use the singular they in a sentence between a person and a group?
Example:
A philosophy student has to go before a panel of judges and debate his topic.
if I make it:
A philosophy student has to go before a panel of judges and debate their topic.
The reader isn'...
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Talking about a third person, formally [closed]
I am talking about my professor to his secretary. Is it polite and formal to refer to him as "he"? or should I use "they"?
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Is "someone" singular or plural? Why using "their" next to someone? [duplicate]
I found this sentence as a definition for a word in the Cambridge dictionary:
"To visit someone in their home"
But I've looked up the word someone and I found that it is singular, so my ...
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Should "each" always be paired with a singular verb, even when a 'singular noun' and [each + partitive] are paired?
I know that normally singular verbs are to be used with "each", but what if an individual and 'each' + a partitive involving a collective noun, such as "family", is spoken of, and &...
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Do we use verb + s/es after singular they? [duplicate]
I am not an American. I think it is in America where they invented the idea of singular they. You don't know the gender of someone, you refer to him/her as they. I am thinking if I should use the verb ...
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Can the use of singular 'they' for a dog that was just called 'she' be considered correct in English?
There's a video on the internet of a dog under the covers and the owner lifts the covers as the large dog spills out and onto the floor like water. The person refers to the dog as "she".
In ...
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Does grammar become tricky when ‘she is’ becomes ‘they is/are’? [duplicate]
Hilary Mantel said recently that she had been ‘misgendered’ in a university publication by being referred to as ‘they’, not ‘she’. She says she was not singled out; all other alumni were similarly ...
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Using singular "they" for an animal
As I know, animals can be called "he" or "she" (not only "it").
Also, if a person's gender is unknown, we may use "they" instead of "he" or "she&...
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Is the use of the singular “they” formal English or not? [duplicate]
I have to write an academic essay for school, and I was wondering if the use of the singular “they/them/their” would be accepted.
Which of these would be “formal” and “accepted” by teachers.
A) ...
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Are there any studies to see if singular "they" is too confusing to use?
There have been a lot of people claiming recently that singular "they" is too confusing, especially for English as a second language speakers. However, I haven't seen anyone point to any ...
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"They is" or "They are" [duplicate]
As a non-native speaker I try to get myself to accept they as gender-neutral third person singular as this is new to me. To achieve this I would like to have a better understanding on the usage and ...
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Singular they = general they [duplicate]
Well, here is the situation.
I have four students. They did a test. Suppose that the regulation is a student getting a score below 40 gets the remark "study hard" which is written at the bottom of the ...
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Singular "they" in 1954
During the June 13, 1954, episode of American television's What's My Line, the panel was blindfolded and had to identify the guests, Les Paul and Mary Ford, by asking a series of questions that the ...
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Can the epicene personal pronoun “they’ be used regardless of semantic gender of the word?
Can the epicene personal pronoun they be used regardless of semantic gender of the word?
In other words, for any word with semantic gender (i.e. lion, lioness, boy, girl, man, woman, cow, bull) ...
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How should I transform "Jane has just broken her leg" into a question starting with "Who" and whose answer is "Jane"? [duplicate]
How should I transform this sentence into a question?
Jane has just broken her leg.
How do I form a question from that sentence so that it starts with who and whose answer is Jane?
Q: Who__________?...
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how to ignore gender nicely in english? can i make the sentence plural? [duplicate]
why is this possible to replace:
someone removed his/her with someone removed their
can I also change:
The user clicks on the button. He/She then sees.. with
The user clicks on the button. They ...
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Should an antecedent of "everyone" take "their" or "his" or "our" as its corresponding possessive pronoun? [duplicate]
I am still confused about how to use the word everyone. I have this sentence on a test:
Everyone wants to do their part.
Everyone wants to do his part.
Everyone wants to do our part.
...
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On The Formality Of The Usage Of The Word "Their"
Is using "their" in a phrase "Everyone has their reasons for doing something" informal? This reason I'm asking this is because a test book I'm using claims that using their in the ...
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Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?
In my native language there’s a word dia which has the same meaning as he/she, but it doesn’t give information about the ...
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Doesn't and Their [duplicate]
'Everyone who doesn't cook their food'
Is it correct?
If it's correct then can you explain why do we use doesn't but the possessive pronoun is Their?
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over a wide range of temperature or temperatures
I am confused with singular and plural words sometimes. For example as the title, I should use over a wide range of temperature or over a wide range of temperatures. One sentence example is
This ...
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What possessive is used when "everybody" is the antecedent? [duplicate]
Is this sentence right?
Everybody is wasting his time.
Is his or its the possessive of everybody?
Most people use his but in my opinion it should be its:
Everybody is wasting its time.
I ...
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it's/his/her vs. their in singular [duplicate]
An expression below embarrasses me. Why not "it's" but "their" litter?
a cat can use their litter box.
in the context we are talking about a few cats, but in this, specific, example we speak ...
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Should you use “it” or “they” when referencing a group of people? [duplicate]
Should you use it or they when referencing a group of people?
Here is the example sentence:
A group of students was walking on the road when a truck hit them/it and it/they was/were immediately ...
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Singular they for an organization, company, country
Sometimes I stumble upon singular "they" when referring not to a person, but an organization, such as a company or a country, for instance:
Company A is doing well: their shares doubled in price ...
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Were or was, the majority of people concerned? [duplicate]
I have checked the possible duplicates which flagged up on this and I have attempted research with no conclusion. ELU is my final port of call.
I wrote, on another forum of Stack Exchange :
'the ...
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If you can't use “he”, “she” or “they” in a sentence, what do you use? [duplicate]
I was waiting for a plane to take off last week, when we had to taxi back to the terminal building to disembark a sick passenger. We weren't told whether the passenger was male or female.
I was ...
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Can it ever be acceptable to use singular “they” with a specific referent of known but undisclosed gender?
I am not sure whether these two examples using singular they to refer to a specific, singular referent are acceptable in educated speech:
I had a friend in Paris, and they had to visit the doctor for ...
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correct pronoun to use with "person" [duplicate]
I was wondering what would be the right pronoun to use in this sentence:
a person sees something that ... really likes
he, they, s/he ?
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Each of the girls in Mark's shop spent "their" or "her" money buying cakes
Can you please tell me if we would use their or her as a possessive pronoun in this sentence?
Each of the girls in Mark's shop spent their money buying cakes.
Each of the girls in Mark's shop spent ...
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Use of "their" with proper nouns [duplicate]
I'm writing content with dynamic names, e.g. "Alice" or "Bill" may be substituted in place of (name). Without knowing the gender of the name, what is the best way to reference the individual? Using "...
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Correct pronoun for "baby" [duplicate]
Stumbled along the use of the feminine pronoun for "baby". Previously, I've used it and singular they when the sex of the baby is unknown.
Is it correct to use the feminine pronoun (she) for "baby" ...
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Is using singular "they," "their" and "them" acceptable in research paper or thesis? [duplicate]
I argued with my I.T. teacher who is also our research adviser because as far as my knowledge is concerned I insisted that using they, them and their is acceptable based on APA style. She prohibited ...
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Gender neutral singular “they” in the first person singular [duplicate]
Can I use they in the following fashion when referring to oneself?
[Name] is a Web Developer at [company Name]. They holds a B.S. in Computer Science.
The emphasis here is when one tries to refer ...
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Subject-verb agreement when using singular they? [duplicate]
This is NOT a question about whether they/them is acceptable as a singular pronoun. I know some of you will have to die before you give that argument a rest, but I am starting here with the ...
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Does/do any group want to give their presentation?
1.Does any group want to give their presentation?
The above sentence looks grammatically correct to me. However, I am confused between the use of do and does here. (The presence of "their" and "any ...
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"Everybody's using a cell phone nowadays" vs. "Everybody's using cell phones nowadays"
The usage of singular and plural has always been confusing for me.
I often see sentences like these
People are using cell phones.
People are using a cell phone.
Does the first sentence ...
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Referring to an author of an academic paper whose gender is unkown [duplicate]
Suppose you are writing an academic paper.
When referring to an author of a paper whose gender is unknown, what pronoun should you use?
"He", "she", "he/she", "they", etc?
Maybe you think this is a ...
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How wide is singular "they" being used? [duplicate]
One might want to use a generic pronoun, that doesn't specify the gender of the person. Although "he" can be used in such case, they decide that "he" still reflect the history time when male was ...
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'They' being used in the singular form [duplicate]
I am from Denmark and my English teacher insists on 'they' being grammatically incorrect when it is used in a singular sense (their hand reached...) No matter what I tell her she is convinced it's ...
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Singular they with ‘known as’
I want to use singular they with the phrase known as. I am not sure if the appellation following known as should be in the singular or plural. Which of the following is correct?
After completing the ...
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Send an invitation and let the user create their own password [duplicate]
Send an invitation and let the user create their own password
In this sentence user is singular, and their is plural. So I am confused whether this sentence is correct or not.
Is this sentence ...
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Can "themselves" be singular? [duplicate]
(This is probably a duplicate, but I couldn't find what I was looking for through search.)
Say for example you have the sentence:
He is referring to himself.
You can replace "he" with "they" (...
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TOEFL gerund vs infinitive question [closed]
While doing my TOEFL prep I encountered the following statement where I am asked to find which of the bold words is being used wrongly in the sentence:
If one has a special medical condition such ...
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Stack Exchange profile: “This user prefers to keep an air of mystery about them” [duplicate]
When a user does not fill his "about me" section in his profile, the following sentence appears:
Apparently, this user prefers to keep an air of mystery about them.
To my knowledge (which are ...
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How is 's/he' pronounced? Do we say 'She or he should ..." or "He or she should ..."? [closed]
How is 's/he' pronounced? Do we say 'She or he should ..." or "He or she should ..."?
Ex.: When a person applies for a job, s/he should always bring a resume.
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What might this example teach us about singular "they"?
I just now encountered the following sentence in a student paper:
Any new parents that have adopted a child of a different race generally embrace their biological parents[’] race.
Having ...
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