The politics of pronouns
The singular “they” and your power to choose as an academic writer.

Question:
I’m wondering about your approach to gendered pronouns. I usually use “she” and “her” to refer to (say) a hypothetical reader; however, on multiple occasions I’ve had an editor change this to “he or she” or “his or her.” If defaulting to “he” now feels gratingly tone-deaf, is defaulting to “she” a healthy correction or (as some editors seem to think) an overcompensation? Should we alternate examples with male and female pronouns? Just go with singular “they”? Something else?
– from Veronica Rose Alfano.
Dr. Editor’s response:
There’s nothing wrong with the singular “they.” English lacks a good gender-neutral or gender-unknown pronoun, with “it” sounding too impersonal, and “one” too stuffy and faux-regal. “They” away!
I understand the impulse behind your editor’s attempted correction. Most likely, they changed your phrasing in an attempt to avoid confusion, out of concern that some readers may think that “she” might refer to some woman described earlier in the text. Such a concern didn’t hold when “he” was the pronoun of choice — yet “she” doesn’t carry the same seeming neutrality that “he” used to, back when male was the default and anything else seemed alternative or abnormal.
To put it another way: in the second sentence in the paragraph above, had I written, “she changed your phrasing,” some readers may have suspected that I think all editors are female; if I had written “he changed your phrasing,” you and many others would accuse me of being “gratingly tone-deaf” to the norms of academic writing, which no longer assume the scholar or their audience to be male by default. So using either “he” or “she” alone isn’t the answer here.
Why we “they”
“They” is a more-than-adequate substitute for instances in which you don’t know the gender of a person who figures in your writing.
Why not “he or she”? Or “s/he”? Or, why don’t I suggest alternating between examples that feature male and then female pronouns? For the final of these options, inconsistency in pronoun use can create confusion — your reader may be mistakenly believe, for example, that the gender matters in your examples, or that there are differences between Hypothetical Person A, “she,” and Hypothetical Person B, “he.” So alternating is out. What about the first two options?
There are, of course, many people who are left out of “he or she” and “s/he” constructions. If you are a scholar of Cree, Inuit, or Kanienʼkehá꞉ka people or cultural productions, your “he or she” will leave out any readers who may be aayahkwew, sipiniq, or onón:wat respectively. Even if you aren’t a scholar of Indigenous studies, you may still have readers who are kathoey or fa’afafine or kinnar or māhū or genderqueer or at some other place on or beyond the gender spectrum. If you mean to refer to anybody, then ensure that you’re using the gender pronoun that encompasses to everybody: the singular “they.”
The “they” precedent
It’s not difficult to search online for instances of the singular “they” being used in historical contexts. A 2016 article from The Guardian cites 75 instances of the singular “they” in Pride and Prejudice. The Oxford English Dictionary provides a Middle English singular “they” from William and the Werewolf: “‘Hastely hiȝed eche . . . þei neyȝþed so neiȝh” — and because I don’t understand 14th century English, I’m happy to trust the OED’s assurance that the example is relevant. If any number of online sources are to be believed, the singular “they” can also be found in works by many eminent dead people: Byron, Chaucer, Dickens, Ruskin, Shakespeare, Thackeray, and on and on.
But I’m not persuaded that we need these historical precedents. Why do we need appeal to an earlier usage for the singular “they” to be appropriate in our era?
We use all kinds of words in ways that don’t have historical precedents — and not only when describing people. We don’t have to harken back to Austen to know that “key” is a great word to describe the little metal thing that I insert into the USB port in my computer. (And don’t get me started on “port” and “computer,” both of which were used differently before the digital revolution.)
Languages are not fixed things; we have the ability to adapt old words to fit new purposes. “They” would be a great choice as a singular pronoun even if there weren’t lots of dead people who used it that way hundreds of years ago.
Your authorial voice has power
When you submit to an academic journal, you have power over the text that is published under your name. Sure, you may need to conform to a particular citation format, and house style may dictate whether you get to capitalize “modernism” or hyphenate “well-being,” but for language that has political implications, you can and should make a case for your preferred word or formatting.
“We have a house style, but we also have real conversations with authors when their writing does not follow our style,” says Dr. Laura Moss, professor of English at the University of British Columbia, and editor of the journal Canadian Literature. Dr. Moss especially appreciates hearing about word or format choices that may have important political implications or historical nuances: “We keep learning from these and so approximately once a year we update our house style manual.”
Similarly, Dr. Emmanuel Hogg, managing editor of Social History and president of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals, says that it is “rather common [at Social History] to permit authors to insist on certain spellings as a matter of argument.” His publication doesn’t want “authors to feel as though they need to simply follow the rules, especially if they feel the rules do not reflect what they want to say or argue.”
In sum, dear letter-writer, while I’ve encouraged you to use “they,” if you wish to persist with “she,” tell your journal’s editor that your pronoun choice is both intentional and political, and then justify your decision. Editors — myself, and my perspective in this column, included — are making suggestions that we believe will improve your text, but the ultimate authority over a piece being published rests with its author. Consider your editor’s advice, but then make the choice that best suits your voice and your argument.
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14 Comments
This is wise advice — thank you! I think I will indeed do more to incorporate singular “they”; if there are contexts in which “they” creates confusion (when there are multiple antecedents to which it could refer, e.g.), I will probably still opt for “she.” Given the longstanding convention that “he” need not refer to some specific male person, I think it is healthy to reinforce the idea that an unspecified individual can also be “she.”
I’d like to highlight the final paragraph here, as I think all too often authors don’t recognize that editorial changes need not be accepted automatically. As a scholarly writer, I always take them seriously but will sometimes query an editor’s advice (I did so just this morning, in fact). As an editor, I try to make sure authors know that, while I wouldn’t make a suggestion if I didn’t think it was valid, I am always open to discussion, and that I don’t expect changes I have proposed simply to be rubber-stamped. It’s always a negotiation, and it never hurts to remind people of that. Thanks for doing so.
If “they” is used as a singular pronoun, does the verb agree with its singularity? For example, which of these versions would be correct?
“My article was praised by the blind reviewer. They was impressed by the argument.”
“My article was praised by the blind reviewer. They were impressed by the argument.”
Great point, Steve, about “they was” vs “they were”. What does Dr. Editor say?
I like the modern view that no longer retains the old concept of “grammatical error”, but replaces it with something like “non-standard construction”. The only important thing is that the meaning be unambiguous. So, as much as I tend to grumble when I read: such-and-such “is comprised of” something or other (rather than “comprises”), the meaning is clear, so I reluctantly just move on with my life! So in this spirit, “I ain’t done that” should not be denigrated as a “grammatical error”.
I also understand why, in modern times, it is best to refrain from using “he” as a generic pronoun. But to me, “they” simply sounds wrong as a singular generic pronoun in spite of there being historical precedents. As stated in the article, “they” can often be ambiguous. So why isn’t there a call-out for people to simply invent a gender-neutral pronoun, put it out there, and see whether it eventually catches on?? Isn’t that the most sensible solution? “OK go ahead, Reuben, invent something”, I imagine I hear you say. Well, I’m just a simple scientist, not a linguist, but how about “heesh”?? It may lack style, but at least it’s not ambiguous! But there are lots of possibilities, and I think they would be much better than “they” … Yuck!!
Preview information about the upcoming (October) release of the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (otherwise known as the APA style manual) suggests that they are going to officially recommend the singular “they”. That imprimatur could change a lot of negative opinions on this matter.
The singular they is also supported in a position paper published by the International Writing Centers Association. This position is in line with the Oxford University Press and OWL Purdue.
http://writingcenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IWCA_Singular_They.pdf
My thanks to all for your engaged and engaging responses. Please keep them coming!
Melissa, it’s great to hear that the APA will be adopting the singular ‘they.’ Still, I think academic writers are well-positioned to advocate for spellings or constructions of political significance that haven’t yet made it in to the style guides. I hope that academic writers don’t feel constrained by these guidebooks.
Joan, many thanks for sharing the IWCA Position Statement, which I hadn’t read before. For those who didn’t read to the bottom of the PDF, I’ll note that the IWCA Position Statement helpfully includes a footnote that students may use when submitting papers for grading. This footnote reads:
In this paper, I deliberately use the generic singular “they.” This usage has historical precedence for the last 400 years, and it is grammatical, as confirmed by linguists [links/citations]. Further, it includes people whose gender identity is not represented by the he/she binary, which erases many members of our community. This impulse toward inclusive linguistic representation is already seen in style guidelines by professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association (APA). The use of singular “they” is endorsed by the International Writing Centers Association, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English.
If anyone is looking for links and citations, the linguist and editor Dr. James Harbeck has written a few excellent pieces on this topic, including this 2016 post from the Editors Canada blog: https://blog.editors.ca/?p=4090
Steve: although “they” is referring to a singular person with unknown gender, the correct verb to use is the one that sounds best with “they”–ie, “were,” not “was.” For more on “awkward-but-accurate” conjugations of the verb “to be,” please see the first-ever Ask Dr Editor column, “Getting ‘is’ Right,” from September 2018: https://archives.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/ask-dr-editor/getting-is-right/
Reuben: to borrow from my editing colleague Sarah Grey: “The science-fiction / fantasy / speculative-fiction world is at the forefront of a systematic effort to put gender-neutral language, alternative pronouns (not only they/their but se/ser, xe/xir, and other neologisms) into print” (source: Conscious Style Guide, 2017: https://consciousstyleguide.com/themself-perfectly-cromulent-word/). So there are people coming up with, and using, new constructions. Still, “they” is most commonly used, and easiest for readers to understand, and so it is the construction that I advise using — unless, like our letter-writer Veronica, you feel strongly about your desire to use “she.”
I am in “politically” in favor of the singular “they.”
I am also a month away from my 74th birthday.
So, saying “they was” is uncomfortable.
Accordingly, when I am writing something that is destined to end up in an awkward “singular” he/she or, worse, s/he, I simply rewrite the preceding to ensure that “it” becomes plural.
It may be a display of grammatical cowardice on my part, but it’s relatively easy to do and I am (almost) self-trained to avoid invitations to syntactical misogyny.
Howard et al:
I don’t understand why there is such a negative feeling about “(s)he” or “s/he”.
Would somebody elaborate?
The answer to this question is in the article above:
There are, of course, many people who are left out of “he or she” and “s/he” constructions. If you are a scholar of Cree, Inuit, or Kanienʼkehá꞉ka people or cultural productions, your “he or she” will leave out any readers who may be aayahkwew, sipiniq, or onón:wat respectively. Even if you aren’t a scholar of Indigenous studies, you may still have readers who are kathoey or fa’afafine or kinnar or māhū or genderqueer or at some other place on or beyond the gender spectrum. If you mean to refer to anybody, then ensure that you’re using the gender pronoun that encompasses to everybody: the singular “they.”
Just to expand slightly on my last comment (the reply option is not working on my system):
All words are simply arbitrary combinations of letters that have meanings that are understood by convention. In that spirit, “(s)he” is normally understood as the singular non-generic pronoun, and doesn’t have the confusing plural look of “they” … I’d appreciate learning what the objection to it might be to some people.
Regarding “they” as a singular, and whether the subsequent verb should be singular or plural:
It just occurred to me that we are totally used to saying “you are doing” as opposed to “you is doing”. In the distant past the singular would have been “thou art” and the plural “you are”. When English dropped the “thou art” form, it retained “you are” for both plural and singular, with the context indicating what applies in the current circumstance. I suppose the same thing is now happening with “they” always followed by “are”, even though the context is singular!
I get that language evolves. As an example, I still find it jarring to go back and read earlier era works where the pronoun “she” is entirely absent. And I get the spirit of the change, and that language is arbitrary, etc. etc.
But oh my poor brain after years of harassing students to get their subject/verb agreements right and avoid vague referents! Just not sure why of all things “they” seems to be sticking instead of a new pronoun that
doesn’t confuse the singular/plural case.
I’ll get used to “they” as a singular, I’m sure, but every time I see it, it feels like crooked picture on the wall that drives me nuts until I straighten it!
Indeed, Laura …. it looks as if “they” is here to stay (or should it be “are here to stay”?)
As for your last statement: I feel the same way about the construction something “is comprised of”, rather than “something is composed of”, which preceded it. Some folks must have thought that “comprised of” sounds far more educated!
Oh well, in a generation or so, all this will be forgotten!