The plural pronouns “THEY” and “THEM”
by Jonathan Clark on January 28, 2010 at 12:29 pm
I see and hear this a lot these days: people using the pronoun they (and sometimes them) in place of a singular noun. “If your employee has a problem, help them understand what they are doing.”
What’s that all about? The word employee is singular, and we learned our grammar rules back in school: “Use a singular pronoun in place of a singular noun.”
The problem, of course, comes from our need to write constructively and gender-free. Once upon a time, the word him would have gone in both places in the example sentence. But half the world, and half the workforce, are not him but her.
This gave rise to the awkward him/her, her/him, he/she, she/he, and the ugliest one of all, s/he.
Listen to your own conversation, and that of others. (Umm, I sometimes even do it when I’m teaching my class.) Speakers frequently use them in referring to a singular subject.
You can always rewrite a sentence to avoid the problem, something I recommend in my classes. “If your employees have a problem, help them…” But there may be another way, and we might not have to wait.
Pay attention to what is happening here. Did you ever notice the word that often accompanies grammar? It’s usage. How people use their language eventually determines the rules…not the other way around. Some grammarians suggest this is not a problem, only a phase in the evolution of a language. The time may come when people accept they and them as grammatically correct in singular use.
Facebook has taken a particularly ugly approach to this, not waiting for anyone to say it’s OK to use the words. I quote from something on my first page at the moment: “Kay could really use some help fertilizing their crops in Farmville.” Without commenting (well, I guess I will) that Kay seriously needs a life if she’s spending time growing virtual crops online, it would seem that somewhere on the Facebook information page is a place to indicate gender. In which case, it wouldn’t be too hard, IMO, to refer to Kay as a she and refer to her crops in (I can’t believe I’m mentioning it again) Farmville.
English has a precedent for this. You. At one time this pronoun was only plural. Over time, it drove out the singular thou. I’m not quite ready to abandon “proper” usage in my choice of the pronouns they and them. But it may happen, and watch for these things. They happen much more frequently (and quickly) with the speed of communication and travel in the 21st century.
