I will begin with a brief preface. We have an international team. I would even say it’s too international, so I have something to compare our English with. And the whole point is that in English, the meaning of the pronoun and the way it is perceived in English is quite different from, for example, in Russian or in Polish. So if in Russian, for example, we talk about a student and use “he,” it sounds much more gender-neutral than the same construction in English.
As a result, many people who don’t know which pronoun to choose use he/she (his/her) together with a slash. And you should agree that this is not the most elegant solution, which makes the text too robotic and kills all the charm of the language.
So let’s define the problem. We need a gender-neutral word, simply because it makes the language much more comfortable and elegant. Of course, everyone is free to use what they prefer and no one has the right to say. But there are rules of etiquette.
So, there are three basic ideas that are quite widespread:
- use he/she.
- use they
- use some other word that still needs to be thought of
Which pronoun is the best for singular if you don’t know the exact gender?
Each of these ideas has its defenders and opponents. In brief, the first option is not very good, because there are people who identify themselves as the third gender. The second option is criticized by many for creating confusion in language. The third option can be criticized for the fact that it actually implies that someone has to come up with a new pronoun and others have to start using it.
As I see it, it is the ‘they’ option that seems most preferable. For one thing, it already has a considerable prevalence in the way we speak. For example, the APA advises using they as a singular.
Each of these ideas has its defenders and opponents. In brief, the first option is not very good, because there are people who identify themselves as the third gender. The second option is criticized by many for creating confusion in language. The third option can be criticized for the fact that it actually implies that someone has to come up with a new pronoun and others have to start using it.
As I see it, it is the ‘they’ option that seems most preferable. For one thing, it already has a considerable prevalence in the way we speak. For example, the APA advises using they as a singular.
And it seems to me to be the best solution to this issue. Simply because it looks quite natural. English already has an example with ‘you’, and this word is also used in both singular and plural. And it does not cause any problems.
Here is another example. We have a person in our team who started learning English at the age of 22. She started by writing articles in English and although she had never seen a rule or advice on what they could use instead of he/she, she started doing it simply because it seemed right and more succinct.
Each of these ideas has its defenders and opponents. In brief, the first option is not very good, because there are people who identify themselves as the third gender. The second option is criticized by many for creating confusion in language. The third option can be criticized for the fact that it actually implies that someone has to come up with a new pronoun and others have to start using it.
As I see it, it is the ‘they’ option that seems most preferable. For one thing, it already has a considerable prevalence in the way we speak. For example, the APA advises using they as a singular.
And it seems to me to be the best solution to this issue. Simply because it looks quite natural. English already has an example with ‘you’, and this word is also used in both singular and plural. And it does not cause any problems.
Here is another example. We have a person on our team who started learning English at the age of 22. She started by writing articles in English and although she had never seen a rule or advice on what they could use instead of he/she, she started doing it simply because it seemed right and more succinct.
But in any case, time will put everything in its place, and eventually, the language will have exactly the variant which will look the best logically in the eyes of most people. After all, language is not a set of rules, but an ever-changing construct, and people speak the way they feel logically right to do it.
