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I was reading an article to improve my English and I noticed that the writer wrote "no one raised their hand," so could you tell me if the sentence below is correct or not and why?

"I looked around the room, and there was an awkward silence. No one raised their hand."

curiousdannii
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حفيد عمر ابن الخطاب
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5 Answers5

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You may be confused because "no one" is singular, but "their" is plural. Except it isn't. In recent decades "they" and "their" have been used increasingly for the singular when the gender of the antecedent is unknown or indeterminate. The traditional rule was to use the masculine gender in such cases, but people have been increasingly uncomfortable with that, for example with saying "no one raised his hand" when the group of people who didn't raise their hands includes both men and women.

phoog
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    It's also known as epicene in grammar context of singular they. Quite related. – Maulik V Sep 24 '20 at 06:56
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    The usage of singular they is not new in English, but yes it is increasingly common. –  Sep 24 '20 at 13:25
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    The other alternative to gender neutral “his” or singular “their” is “his/her”, although this is also increasingly going out of fashion – Tim Sep 24 '20 at 18:30
  • Singular they has been used since Chaucer! – curiousdannii Sep 25 '20 at 06:47
  • TBH, as a native speaker in my 30s, "no one raised his hand" just sounds wrong. I would have thought that that was because it SHOULD be plural (in the same way hat people is in "none of the people raised their hand"), but maybe I'm just used to not using the old gendered term. It would be interesting to know if sentence actually exists anywhere historically. I don't remember ever reading anything like it in older fiction. – naught101 Sep 25 '20 at 06:49
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    @naught101 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?corpus=26&smoothing=3&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&content=no+one+raised+his+hand%2C+no+one+raised+their+hand&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cno%20one%20raised%20his%20hand%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cno%20one%20raised%20their%20hand%3B%2Cc0 - you are the right age to view "their" as the more standard phrasing – Neil Slater Sep 25 '20 at 08:17
  • @NeilSlater If they are in their 30s, like me, they formed their language feel at home and at school in the late 80s and in the 90s. The graphs rises sharply only after that. – Vladimir F Героям слава Sep 25 '20 at 11:34
  • @naught101 eh, I don't know. If you had a series of automated cupboards you could say "no cupboard opened its door". You wouldn't say "no cupboard opened their door". So I think the pronoun being singular is correct here. It's just when it comes to people it's singular they which is commonly used these days. – Muzer Sep 25 '20 at 11:55
  • @NeilSlater: Thanks for providing data. For reference, I was in primary school from 1990-1996, which is pretty much the exact time that the transition began, according to your link (approximately equal usage during that time). I was in rural, but fairly progressive community. Language history is fascinating :) – naught101 Sep 25 '20 at 12:39
  • Back to phoog's answer though - why is his/their singular in the sentence, and not plural? I guess an older phrasing might be "Not one person raised his hand"? – naught101 Sep 25 '20 at 12:45
  • Personally, I feel like it would be awkward to say "no one raised his hand" even if you knew that all the people in question were men. "Their" just sounds right to me universally. – TKoL Sep 25 '20 at 16:10
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    While using "their" is common and wouldn't sound wrong to anyone hearing it, perhaps another, gender-neutral version of the phrase would be "...No one raised A hand." – vancy-pants Sep 25 '20 at 17:38
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It depends what you’re trying to say. If you’re trying to say that no hands went up while you were looking round the room, then “no one raised their hand” is correct. But if you want to say that while you were looking round the room you didn’t see any hands that had already gone up, it would be “no one had raised their hand”.

Mike Scott
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    +1 for the insight that the question might not have related to the use of "their"! – CCTO Sep 24 '20 at 13:55
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The singular usage of "they" is supported by respected American and English dictionaries.

You could escape from this particular argument by saying, "No-one raised a hand."

However I see nothing wrong with saying, "No-one raised their hand". Merriam-Webster explicitly allows this usage.

2: his or her : HIS, HER, ITS —used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent

anyone in their senses — W. H. Auden

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/their

Merriam-Webster is probably the most respected dictionary of American English.

Note that W.H. Auden was highly literate, a poet, who died September 29, 1973, so we are not talking about recent or uneducated usage.

Note: @Mike Scott has pointed out in a comment that The use of “they” as a singular dates back to the 14th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Older_usage

Here's the British usage from lexico.com, an offshoot of the famous Oxford Dictionaries.:

their

Belonging to or associated with a person of unspecified sex.

‘she heard someone blow their nose loudly’

‘Anyone who wants to voice their displeasure over that lot has to do a lot of voicing.’

etc.

https://www.lexico.com/definition/their

chasly - supports Monica
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It's a very common expression. Check this tweet, for example. So, to answer the question, yes, it's correct.

Also, you can simply say, "I looked around, and there was..."

Maulik V
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No one raised their hand = No person raised his or her hand.

Yes, it's grammatically correct.

user122673
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    This doesn't add anything new. Can you explain "why" it is grammatically correct? Why is the plural pronoun (their) used instead of "his or her"? – Mari-Lou A Sep 26 '20 at 07:03