Definition:
A personal pronoun that includes both masculine and feminine, such as they in English. In recent years, because English does not have a singular equivalent for they and because the use of he as a generic pronoun appears to exclude or marginalize women, various composites and neologisms have been proposed, including s/he, han, and he/she. Increasingly, the they-pronoun group is used in singular constructions (a practice that dates to the 16th century), though strict prescriptive grammarians fault this practice. The most common way of avoiding the problem is to use the plural forms of nouns in company with the generic pronouns they, them, and their. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Never pick a fight with an ugly person: they have nothing to lose."
(Robin Williams) - "When a teacher looks out over his or her classroom, he/she is looking at one in three girls who have been sexually mistreated, one in five boys."
(Chris Crutcher) - "I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government."
(Cindy Sheehan) - "It's imperative to a child's success that they have strong self-esteem. A parent plays a key role in its development and must be conscious of choices s/he makes daily to influence a child's self-esteem."
(Toni Schutta) - "'He' started to be used as a generic pronoun by grammarians who were trying to change a long-established tradition of using 'they' as a singular pronoun. In 1850 an Act of Parliament gave official sanction to the recently invented concept of the generic 'he.' . . . [T]he new law said, 'words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females.'"
(R. Barker and C. Moorcroft, Grammar First, Nelson Thornes, 2003)
Also Known As: common-gender pronoun and epicene pronoun
