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Singular they, along with its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (also themself and theirself), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. It typically occurs with an indeterminate antecedent , to refer to an unknown person, or to refer to every person of some group, in sentences such as:
Old English had a single third-person pronoun hē, which had both singular and plural forms, and they wasn't among them. In or about the start of the 13th century, they was imported from a Scandinavian source (Old Norse þeir, Old Danish, Old Swedish þer, þair), in which it was a masculine plural demonstrative pronoun.
Singular they/them/their pronouns are appropriate to use in reference to any person who goes by them. If a person exclusively goes by neopronouns, such as ze/hir, then singular they should also generally be used instead of neopronouns when referring to that individual, though their neopronouns should usually be mentioned in their biography (in the main prose or in a footnote).
Since at least the 14th century, they (including related forms such as them, their, theirs, themselves, and themself) has been used with a plural verb form to refer to a singular antecedent. [28] This usage is known as the singular they , as it is equivalent to the corresponding singular form of the pronoun.
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors describe it as an analytic language, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved some of the inflectional complexity of Old English and ...
The third-person singular personal pronouns (and their possessive forms) are gender specific: he/him/his (masculine gender, used for men, boys, and male animals), she/her(s) (feminine gender, for women, girls, and female animals), the singular they/them/their(s) (common gender, used for people or animals of unknown, irrelevant, or non-binary ...
1 Singular and plural word senses of "they" versus singular and plural cases of "they"
A set of four badges, created by the organizers of the XOXO art and technology festival in Portland, Oregon. Preferred gender pronouns (also called personal gender pronouns, often abbreviated as PGP [1]) are the set of pronouns (in English, third-person pronouns) that an individual wants others to use to reflect that person's own gender identity.