A student had concluded his essay with this sentence: “Everyone should ask themself whether they are honest.” The teacher who marked the essay and circled the words ‘themself’ and ‘they’ on the assignment to indicate that both the words in the sentence were grammatically incorrect and asked the student to replace the sentence with this one: “Everyone should ask himself/herself whether he/she is honest.”
Unconvinced, the student told the teacher that he was sure that the sentence was grammatically correct but the teacher did not change her mind. Is the sentence ungrammatical? Is “themself” an acceptable word in the sentence? Can “they” be used as a singular gender-neutral pronoun as used in the sentence? The sentence, “Everyone should ask themself whether they are honest” is correct whereas the sentence suggested by the teacher is not only clunky but also incomplete in meaning as it does not include the genderqueer (transgender) person who has a sexual identity that is neither male nor female. ‘Themself’ is well accepted in modern English and is widely used. ‘Themself’, the singular form of ‘themselves’, is used instead of ‘himself’ or ‘herself’ to refer to a person whose gender is unspecified. Look at these
Examples:
The student who fails to submit the assignment on time will blame themself for the punishment.
How could someone justify themself by saying that the minister’s actions were bona fide?
This is the question that every transgender person willing to work has to ask themself before signing their contract.
In the first two examples above, the subjects of the sentences “student”, and “someone” refer to persons whose gender is unspecified and in the third sentence the subject “genderqueer person” refers to the person belonging to the third gender and therefore, we use the gender-neutral singular pronoun ‘themself’ in the sentences. “They” can also be used as a singular gender-neutral pronoun and it follows a pronoun such as anyone, someone, no one, everyone.
Anyone can become a software professional if they are good at mathematics.
Everyone should submit a copy of their contract if they want to apply for a house loan.
Advocates of non-sexist and gender-neutral language say that it is unfair to use ‘he’ as the generic term to refer to a person whose gender is unspecified. Of late, transgender rights activists across the globe also call for a more inclusive pronoun.
Over 135 years ago, Napoleon Bonapart Brown argued for the need for a new pronoun. “The need of a personal pronoun of the singular number and common gender is so desperate, imperative that according to the established theories it should long since have grown on our speech, as the tails grew off the monkeys.” (The Atlantic 42, Nov, 1878: 639-40).
The English language is evolving. Language is used for communication and effective communication is possible only if people use a language that does not discriminate against anyone based on their sex, race, nationality etc.
— rayanal@yahoo.co.uk
