Why Aren't You Using the Singular "They" Yet?
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It was never even grammatically incorrect
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In all walks of life, there are all kinds of writers. Poets seem to maintain the greatest license for bending the rules for years and years, but as the language changes and people's creative processes change, the way the language is presented to others must change as well.
Change happens whether we’re ready or not
The singular they is one of those changes I resisted for a long time. Believe me, I’m all for progress. I jumped right on that “single space after a period” when typing, after all. But the singular they seemed to ring disingenuous to me. They by its very nature means more than one.
In the past, if I were writing about an imaginary person used as an example, and the person's sex was unknown or needed to be deliberately ambiguous, I would either default to he/him or I would alternate between he and she in various paragraphs and examples.To my eye, this wasn't nearly as clunky as the he or she or him/her examples found in older books, but it still didn't produce the desired effect.
As soon as somebody writes the word him, the reader pictures a man in their head. And regardless of the intent to be ambiguous, there are many who don't feel that the use of man or mankind is very inclusive. To say person or personkind or humankind feels equally clunky to me, though there are some who would insist on it.
I won't go so far as to claim the “I'm old” excuse—I’ve seen that touted too often as an excuse for bigotry—but I've never seen anything that would indicate a lack of inclusiveness with words like manmade or mankind because I tend to see man as a shortened form of human. That makes sense to me. But I see how words such as mailman or chairman are exclusive to an entire segment of not-men who may hold those jobs. And the important thing to remember is that just because I see those words in a certain way doesn’t mean I’m right, or that the language change hasn’t zipped on by while I wasn’t looking.
The world is bigger than my place in it
I am not the only person who reads. And I am not the only person who writes. And if we’re being honest, I am not the only person who matters. We make a big deal out of ensuring that children feel included when they read children's books or watch children's TV shows. The big hits of yesteryear like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and Barney made sure to include children of various races and children with a variety of disabilities on their shows.
The language used in books and reading material for adults should show no less inclusivity. Though gender fluidity isn’t anything new, the growing awareness of it has highlighted the need for pronouns that go beyond the standard he/she in use. To use the singular they as an all-encompassing term is much simpler than trying to keep it all straight for every occasion. If we know someone’s pronouns, we should use them, of course, but if we don’t, or our writing is directed at a general audience, the singular they is a lifesaver and perfectly appropriate.
Singular “they” isn’t the most revolutionary change
When I was a child, I remember the term Ms. becoming a thing. In fact, according to Merriam-Webster, the word had already been a known thing since 1901 (many decades before I was born, for those of you who wonder if I was indeed a child in 1901), but it took a long time for women to insist on its regular usage.
In the decades where women were finally becoming known as their own people, many of them wished to assert their independence in a tangible way by showing that they did not need to have a Mrs. attached to their name to feel important. Miss didn't quite fit the bill if the woman in question was older than twenty-one, and if a woman over twenty-one wasn't married, then apparently people were at a loss for how to categorise her. It's a shame that she couldn't just be known as herself, but I didn’t make the rules back then.
Adaptation of the language should reflect our changing society
My point is that sometimes people need to adapt to society’s norms (we wear clothing in public places), and sometimes society needs to adapt to people (not everyone identifies as male or female). In the case of language, we need to adapt to the needs of the ever-changing whole rather than clinging to the traditions of the past.
In A World without “Whom”, author Emmy J. Favilla points out that the singular they has actually been in use since Shakespeare’s time, and even as far back as Chaucer’s time, so it really shouldn’t be a big deal to us. Yet for those of us who grew up with and were taught by prescriptivist grammarians, it feels wrong somehow to go against the authorities by using a plural pronoun for an individual.
But the fact remains that times change, habits change, and language patterns change. As writers and editors, to remain unchanged when all else around us is changing actually leaves us in a place of irrelevance. If we want our voices to be heard, we need to write in a way that’s inclusive of everyone. The singular they’s nonbinary sense was even added to Merriam-Webster in September of 2019 and to the APA Style Guide around that same time. Honestly, there’s no valid excuse for resisting this.
Nobody wants to listen to last year’s ideas. This is what drives fashion, new car styles, home trends, and more to constantly shift. And if we’re so willing to embrace the changes that aren’t actually important (like what’s hot in shoe styles for this summer and this summer only), then we can’t really justify ignoring actual people in their desire for inclusion.
People should always be considered as more important than things, even when that “thing” is a grammar rule. The singular they has been in use for long enough in ambiguous gender situations that it really shouldn’t be a big deal to adapt to the use of it when someone wants to go by they/them pronouns.
And that’s why you’ll find me using it.
