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Is it good English to say "They have just left", when talking about a single person (perhaps someone you don't know the gender of)?

(I am a native English speaker, I'm looking for the view held by lexicographers).

tchrist
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dan_waterworth
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    I will quote one of our moderators: " Singular they enjoys a long history of usage in English [...]. However, 'singular they' also enjoys a long history of criticism. If you are anxious about being criticized (for what is in fact a perfectly grammatical construction) you are advised to reword to avoid having to use a gender neutral singular third-person pronoun." – RegDwigнt Dec 15 '10 at 17:18
  • @Kosmonaut: Some people consider it nonstandard in English :) – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 15 '10 at 20:51
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    @Mr. Shiny and New: When I say "nonstandard", I mean not in anyone's notion of Standard English; a newspaper, magazine, journal article, or legal document would specifically avoid this usage. I don't think you could argue it is actually standard in that sense in any part of the world at this time. But certainly, if you mean "standard" in the sense of this being preferred by some people in casual speech, then that is certainly true (myself included). I think it ultimately will become standard. – Kosmonaut Dec 15 '10 at 21:27
  • @Kosmonaut: I'd disagree that it's non-standard. A legal document might avoid it because legal documents should avoid anything which might introduce (unwanted) ambiguity, however those other publications you mention would certainly use it unless some style guide, or the author, feels strongly that it is "wrong". – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 16 '10 at 13:49
  • @Mr. Shiny and New: A journal article, newspaper, or magazine would use this? Not only that, but even enough that it would not be considered nonstandard? Can you provide some evidence for this? – Kosmonaut Dec 16 '10 at 15:02
  • @Kosmonaut: I don't have any evidence at hand but I'm sure I've seen it. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 16 '10 at 15:09
  • @Mr. Shiny and New: But by what measure would "I've seen it" make it standard though? I have no doubt it exists and it is my preferred way of expressing this concept outside of formal writing, but it is not the standard of grammarians or publications. – Kosmonaut Dec 16 '10 at 15:43
  • @Kosmonaut: Well, I'm not a linguist so I haven't studied the issue. But my reading on this subject suggests that this is one of those cases where some "authorities" call it nonstandard and others don't. Kind of like the split infinitive "rule". – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 16 '10 at 15:46
  • @Mr. Shiny: I guess we're sort of stuck on a minor point when we probably agree more than we disagree. There is no one place to easily look and see what is officially standard in English (like you can in French), I can't prove that nobody has ever put it forth as standard, and you have better things to do than spend a few hours researching for a grammar guide or publication style guide that says it is standard. Fair enough :) – Kosmonaut Dec 16 '10 at 18:03
  • @Kosmonaut: you're probably right. Maybe I'm wrong in calling it standard. Lots of people don't. But I for one will continue to use it in any writing at all, because dammit it's RIGHT :) – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 16 '10 at 21:22
  • @RegDwight: Edited with diamond powers :) – Kosmonaut Dec 17 '10 at 01:29
  • This question was marked as a duplicate. I wonder what the answer to my question is. – ivanhoescott Apr 02 '14 at 16:03
  • @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't find it satisfactory. Please see the Martha's first comment to it. – ivanhoescott Apr 02 '14 at 16:13
  • @ivanhoescott Do you think by asking the same question again you will get a different answer? – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Apr 02 '14 at 16:17
  • @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I just want to know an appropriate answer to my question. – ivanhoescott Apr 02 '14 at 16:21
  • @ivanhoescott: So your question was "Is it okay to use singular they" and this question is "what is the acceptable stance on singular they" and the answer is "it has been used for a long time, but some people don't like it". I'm not sure how this could be made more clear. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Apr 02 '14 at 16:47
  • @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 [it has been used for a long time] This is not correct. Please see the aforementioned Martha's comment. – ivanhoescott Apr 02 '14 at 16:50
  • @ivanhoescott Shakespeare is not the only one to have used this construction. The OED cites it in 16thC, singular them from 17thC, singular themselves from 14thC. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Apr 02 '14 at 17:21
  • @ivanhoescott Also Martha is wrong. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Apr 02 '14 at 17:23
  • @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 [Also Martha is wrong.] I'm not sure if it's not generic they in that case. It could be that they were indeed plural. It is possible that two or three people actually came and one of them knocked the door. – ivanhoescott Apr 02 '14 at 18:31
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    @ivanhoescott Come to the chat room to discuss this further. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Apr 02 '14 at 18:54
  • @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OK. – ivanhoescott Apr 02 '14 at 18:57
  • so, you saw the person, knew that there was only one, and saw that person leave, but did not know the person's gender? And you are replying or explaing to somebody that ONE person left? I would say in that case it wluld be deliberately misleading to say "they have just left". (notice that "have" subtly implies you are using "they " as plural (which points out a difficulty with the singular "they"—one does not say "they has left"—correct me if I'm wrong!). The clear way to say this is to use the genderless singular: "[SOMEBODY/SOMEONE] just left(; I don't know who.)" – Brian Hitchcock Jan 19 '15 at 00:58
  • I found a surprisingly clear explanation for the reason why referring to a specific definite person as they is ungrammatical. See my answer to this question(there are two answers of mine. I mean the new one): http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/48/is-there-a-correct-gender-neutral-singular-pronoun-his-versus-her-versus – ivanhoescott Jan 19 '15 at 00:21
  • Please visit here. –  Oct 13 '15 at 09:28
  • When English speakers rejected the informal-formal "thou"-"you" social construct, and chose to use "you" universally, its default meaning gradually became singular. This forced speakers to add plural qualifiers such as "you all", "y'all", "yous", and "yous people" (or "yous guys") to clarify the subject when context was insufficient. After rejecting the "he"-"she" social construct, the default meaning of "they" and "them" will evolve to become singular. People will have to use "they all", "th'all", "them all", "theys", "thems", "theys people", and "thems people" when context is insufficient. – Eryk Sun Mar 21 '24 at 08:58

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When using the plural third-person pronoun to refer to a single person, grammatically you are introducing a disagreement in number. So this is technically an incorrect usage and, again technically (and historically), one is "supposed" to use the third-person singular masculine pronoun he where gender is non-specific.

All that is changing. Since the advent of the women's movement and feminism, people have felt uncomfortable substituting a masculine pronoun in such cases, as if women were some lesser beings wholly submerged by men. This led to some difficulties. It makes for painstaking sentences to always refer to "he or she" when you don't know the gender, as in 

If someone were to look in the cupboard, he or she would find the plates.

That's fine for a simple sentence, but if you get into a paragraph where you constantly have to use "he or she" to refer to the subject of the paragraph, it makes for some tortured writing.

Informally people use "they" all the time to avoid this kind of thing. There was an effort some years ago to introduce a neuter set of pronouns ('tey', 'ter', 'tem'), but like all such manufactured language solutions it was destined to fail. Just because something may be a good idea doesn't mean anyone will actually use it.

I even find myself writing "someone ... they" and having to go back and edit. If someone uses it as you did, saying "They just left" to mean someone just left, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Robusto
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  • Of course, you can often work around the issue, by writing "If one were to you look in the cupboard, one would find the plates" or "If you were to look in the cupboard, you would find the plates", etc. :-) – ShreevatsaR Dec 15 '10 at 17:26
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    @ShreevatsaR: Yeah, but that's a different kind of trap. "If one were to look in the cupboard, one would find plates, and then one could take one of the plates and make oneself a sandwich. One might find that such a sandwich would satisfy one's hunger quite admirably." It all gets to sounding very boring and stilted in some way. – Robusto Dec 15 '10 at 18:09
  • @Robusto: If I were writing about cupboards, plates, and sandwiches, I'd probably use "you", thereby avoiding both stilted-ness and the abomination of singular they. – Marthaª Dec 15 '10 at 18:43
  • @Martha: Good point. – Robusto Dec 15 '10 at 19:22
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    Singular they is much older than the recent changes to eradicate gender-neutral he. It is not technically wrong. It only appears wrong if you constrain they to mean multiple people; if you look at its usage over the last few centuries you'll see that's not the case. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 15 '10 at 20:53
  • When using the plural second-person pronoun to refer to a single person, you *are* also introducing a disagreement in number. Wert thou so sorely vexed by this "disagreement in number", surely thou wouldst here another pronoun have used. :) – tchrist Jan 23 '15 at 00:46
  • "When using the plural third-person pronoun to refer to a single person, grammatically you are introducing a disagreement in number." If you're treating they as a plural pronoun, I think this would be best understood as a semantic disagreement. Since the referent may not be explicit at all, there can't be a grammatical disagreement. – LarsH Oct 16 '19 at 15:36
  • @LarsH: It can be a number disagreement and a semantic disagreement at the same time. Nevertheless, those who promote singular they would argue that neither disagreement exists, because of the forced interpretation of a singular condition for the pronoun. – Robusto Oct 16 '19 at 16:02
  • My comment was unclear. I meant it was a disagreement semantically (at most) rather than grammatically. – LarsH Oct 16 '19 at 20:56
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Singular they has been used in English for a long, long time. Seriously, Shakespeare even used it.

Unfortunately, a significant number of English speakers think it's wrong. Why? No clue. I'd label it a hypercorrection.

I think the most important thing to think about is whether your audience will understand you. On this count, singular they really shines, as everybody — even those who pooh-pooh it — understand exactly what you're saying.

Another consideration is what alternatives you have. One sounds stuffy; he or she is too long; just he is inaccurate (and possibly offensive).

Singular they is really the best way to go.

Joshua Karstendick
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    I dunno. All the purported examples I've seen of Shakespeare's use of singular they are better interpreted as examples of generic they. – Marthaª Dec 15 '10 at 19:39
  • @Martha: what's a generic they as opposed to a singular they? – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 15 '10 at 20:54
  • @Mr. Shiny and New: I'm not sure I can explain it very well... Generic they refers to the whole group represented by the singular subject, not to that specific individual. 'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them* partial, should o'erhear the speech.* -The pronoun refers to all mothers, and is hence plural, even though "a mother" looks singular. – Marthaª Dec 15 '10 at 21:09
  • @Martha: Also, we know the gender in the case of mother, so she should be preferred anyway if it is not plural. – Kosmonaut Dec 15 '10 at 23:28
  • As for "Why? No clue", there's a simple explanation: most people know of "they" as a plural pronoun, and are unaware that the same word is also acceptable as a singular pronoun. – ShreevatsaR Dec 16 '10 at 05:35
  • @Martha: ok, that makes sense. Actually 'generic they' seems like a redundant categorization, since it seems to me to be just using the pronoun normally: " ... since nature makes [mothers] partial..." Here "mothers" is replaced by "them". Hardly worth noting IMO :) – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 16 '10 at 13:53
  • @Mr. Shiny and New: technically, the antecedent of "them" in that quote is a mother, not mothers. – Marthaª Dec 16 '10 at 15:35
  • You folks are being a bit sloppy with your justifications. That a word has been in use for a long time does not include it in standard English by default. People generally regard they as a gender-neutral, third-person plural because it has a way longer history of being exactly that. The pronoun "they" comes to us from 13th c. Scandinavian, alongside "them" and "their". These are all plural pronouns. The reason they are all plural is that Old English used before these multiple gender-specific, plural pronouns. – R Mac Nov 11 '14 at 21:55
  • It's way easier to keep track of three gender-neutral pronouns (which together are far more malleable than their old English counterparts) than it is to keep track of six gendered pronouns. It makes sense that the English language adopted these Scandinavian words as replacements for less useful elements. But Old English was a gendered language--more similar to today's German than modern English. Gender was baked into verbs themselves, so it didn't make any sense to have a gender-neutral singular pronoun. It wouldn't agree with anything and would just sound weird to a native speaker's ear. – R Mac Nov 11 '14 at 21:58
  • It should come as no surprise, then, that linguists sometimes insist that "they" be used as a plural pronoun. That's how it started. Of course language can change with time, but it's not radical at all to suppose "they" is plural. It is plural, and linguistics purists can harken back to lonnnnnnggggggg-standing traditions to garner support for the point. Speakers are free to do whatever they want with language, though, and I don't expect anyone will be confused over the matter. Have at it. Just understand "they" is historically gender-neutral and plural. – R Mac Nov 11 '14 at 22:02
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    Referring to a non-specific indefinite person as they is grammatical, but referring to a specific definite person as they is ungrammatical. Please read my answer to this question(there are two answers of mine. I mean the new one): http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/48/is-there-a-correct-gender-neutral-singular-pronoun-his-versus-her-versus – ivanhoescott Jan 19 '15 at 00:29
  • This is the accepted answer, yet it doesn't answer the question: "I'm looking for the view held by lexicographers." – LarsH Oct 16 '19 at 15:30
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In formal usage I'd avoid the singular 'they', but it's very common in my experience (native British English speaker) in everyday language.

It's primarily used when referring to somebody whose gender is unknown (either because an unknown person has done something, or because you're talking about a hypothetical situation rather than referring to any specific person).

It's also common when the speaker wishes to hide the gender of the person they're speaking about, or feels the gender is unimportant to what they're saying. For example, "I wanted to meet a friend today, but they're too busy" is a sentence that feels perfectly natural to me.

It's unlikely to be used if the gender is specified. For example, I'd be surprised to hear a sentence like "I wanted to see my niece, but they're too busy" - I'd expect "she" in that case because a niece is by definition female.

Chris H
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It's considered wrong by some people and generally avoided by most, but I think it's going to become standard in the future as there aren't any other attractive alternatives and as non-traditional gender identification becomes more accepted and common, we will find ourselves needing such a pronoun more often.

scleaver
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    In the future? It's been around for centuries. See here: http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html – Barrie England Sep 11 '12 at 17:36
  • People are saying it is non-standard, and I have heard some call it wrong, so I'm just saying I think this opinion will be diminished in the future as the news media finds itself addressing gender issues in a formal context. – scleaver Sep 11 '12 at 17:59
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    @BarrieEngland [It's been around for centuries.] It seems to me they have been using only generic they. See here. – ivanhoescott Apr 03 '14 at 08:10
  • @ivanhoescott. I know. I've written about it here: http://caxton1485.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/the-negative-canon-singular-they/ – Barrie England Apr 03 '14 at 09:37
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The following quotes are from the wikipedia article. It seems to me that they all use "they" for a generic person. For example, in the Chesterfield's example: "If a person is born of a . . . gloomy temper . . . they cannot help it.", "a person" appears to be singular but it represents any person. It is essentially plural.

The following are similar examples.

'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech."— Shakespeare, Hamlet (1599);

"If a person is born of a . . . gloomy temper . . . they cannot help it."— Chesterfield, Letter to his son (1759);

"Now nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing"— Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive (1866); "Nobody in their senses would give sixpence on the strength of a promissory note of the kind."— Bagehot, The Liberal Magazine (1910);

"I would have every body marry if they can do it properly."— Austen, Mansfield Park (1814);

Caesar: "No, Cleopatra. No man goes to battle to be killed." Cleopatra: "But they do get killed" —Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra (1901);

"A person can't help their birth."— W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848);

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another . . ." —United States Declaration of Independence;

On the other hand, I think the use of singular they in the following example is grammatically incorrect because it refers to a specific person hence it is essentially singular.

Someone was approaching my room. I could see that they were alone judging from their footsteps. They knocked on my door. I didn't answer. They knocked again. I still didn't answer so they left.

ivanhoescott
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    I think you are splitting hairs in that last example. a generic person is just as singular as a specific person. Either the use of they for both is grammatically incorrect, or it isn't. – tunny Nov 11 '14 at 21:29
  • @tunny Why on earth do you think the difference between a generic person and a specific person is petty? The word "generic" has the opposite meaning of the word "specific" – ivanhoescott Nov 11 '14 at 21:38
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    And what is so different between your "they knocked" example and Shakespeare? "FRIAR LAURENCE Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself. ROMEO Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans, Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. FRIAR LAURENCE Hark, how they knock! Who's there?" – Peter Shor Nov 11 '14 at 21:44
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    Shakespeare is using "they" to refer to the unknown person who is knocking at the door. This seems to me to be exactly the same situation as your last "grammatically incorrect". – Peter Shor Nov 11 '14 at 22:00
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    (Please ignore my last comment) I take the point that generic and specific may have opposite meanings but, unlike group nouns such as team and company, singular nouns which in British English we may think of as groups of people, and use with a plural verb, generic words are generally considered completely singular. A/the tiger is carnivorous; it eats .... Logically therefore, we should not be able to use they with your generic person any more than with a specific person. I don't think the argument that they is possible for a generic person but not for a specific person holds up. – tunny Nov 11 '14 at 22:16