Personal Pronouns : Part Three — Third person pronouns

Declen­sion of Cur­rent Third Per­son­al Pro­nouns

Sub­ject	Object	Pos­ses­sive Adjec­tive	Pos­ses­sive Pro­noun	Reflex­ive	Num­ber	Gen­der
THIRD PERSON
he	him	his	his	him­self	sin­gu­lar	mas­cu­line
she	her	her	hers	her­self	sin­gu­lar	fem­i­nine
it	it	its	its	itself	sin­gu­lar	neuter
they	them	their	theirs	them­selves	plur­al	neu­tral

Now we get to the real­ly com­pli­cat­ed sec­tion. The gen­der game. The use of third per­son per­son­al pro­nouns in Eng­lish forces the speaker/writer to con­sid­er the nat­ur­al gen­der of the per­son they are refer­ring to. Because Eng­lish pro­nouns are so firm­ly asso­ci­at­ed with nat­ur­al gen­der, the tra­di­tion­al use of mas­cu­line forms to express gener­ic human iden­ti­ty is now felt to be unfor­tu­nate and ambigu­ous, if not sex­ist.
What to do about the whole he and/or she prob­lem? Clear­ly there is a prob­lem here. All you have to do is try to tell a sto­ry about some­one with­out reveal­ing the per­sons gen­der and you will very quick­ly dis­cov­er that there is no ade­quate com­mon­ly used solu­tion.
Try fill­ing the blank in the fol­low­ing sen­tence:
Every teacher must ensure that … can do first aid.
Whether you put he or she, you seem to imply that teach­ers are all the same gen­der.
Orig­i­nal­ly he/his would have been con­sid­ered gener­ic in the fol­low­ing:
The appli­cant must demon­strate his abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how he would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
How­ev­er for many peo­ple, this use of he/his sug­gest that women are inel­i­gi­ble for the job.
Alter­na­tives for busi­ness writ­ing:
he or she
The appli­cant must demon­strate his or her abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how he or she would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
This spells out the fact that both sex­es are in the mind of the per­son com­mu­ni­cat­ing, and that no dis­crim­i­na­tion is intend­ed. Once or twice in a text it is alright, but it becomes cum­ber­some if used repeat­ed­ly.
he/she
The appli­cant must demon­strate his/her abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how he/she would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
Both sex­es are recog­nised as in sec­tion 1. The slash puts the alter­na­tives more neat­ly, thought it’s rather imper­son­al. For some writ­ers the lack of oral coun­ter­parts is a con­cern.
s/he
The appli­cant must demon­strate his/her abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how s/he would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
This again is a neat way of show­ing that both sex­es are includ­ed, thought some­thing else is need­ed for him/her.
he alter­nat­ing with she through­out the text.
The appli­cant must demon­strate his abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how she would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
This is sug­gest­ed by some as a way of being absolute­ly even-hand­ed, but it is extreme­ly dis­con­cert­ing to the read­er. It give the impres­sion that two dif­fer­ent iden­ti­ties are being referred to, when only one is intend­ed.
it
The appli­cant must demon­strate its abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how it would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
You can use it to refer to a baby-thought the child’s par­ents are unlike­ly to. The pro­noun can­not be used very far up in the age range and is oth­er­wise only used for ani­mals.
they
The appli­cant must demon­strate their abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how they would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
How­ev­er this works bet­ter if the whole sen­tence is turned into a plur­al:
Appli­cants must demon­strate their abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how they would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
It is increas­ing­ly com­mon to see they used in a sin­gu­lar case. But it still presents as sound­ing awk­ward or ungram­mat­i­cal.
you
When you apply you must demon­strate your abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how you would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
This cre­ates a style which address­es the read­er much more direct­ly.
Avoid pro­nouns alto­geth­er and rely on abstract nouns:
The appli­cant must demon­strate an abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and present plans for future devel­op­ment of the unit.
This style is very imper­son­al and detached.
Repeat the words which iden­ti­fy peo­ple, pro­vid­ed this is not too clum­sy.
The appli­cant must demon­strate an abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly. The appli­can­t’s plan for devel­op­ing the unit should be sub­mit­ted.
Use a new gen­der free pro­noun such as Co, E, hesh, tey, ther, thon and ey:
The appli­cant must demon­strate eir abil­i­ty to work inde­pen­dent­ly, and how ey would devel­op the unit if appoint­ed to the posi­tion.
Cuts loose the sex­ist tra­di­tions embed­ded in Eng­lish, but requires some expla­na­tion, and con­cert­ed effort to imple­ment them.
As a side note, it could be argued that the changes cur­rent­ly under­go­ing they are very sim­i­lar to the ones that you went through 400 years ago, with a plur­al tak­ing of the mean­ing of a sin­gu­lar use.
That’s all well and good, but what about when telling a sto­ry? Lets try some of the dif­fer­ent approach­es.
First, they, using a plur­al as a sin­gu­lar.
Yes­ter­day evening I was at the pub with a friend of mine, Blue, we were hav­ing a drink and gen­er­al­ly catch­ing up. We were both drink­ing our usu­al, a bar­car­di and coke for me, and a VB for them.
Blue had been wait­ing for a while by the time I arrived, such that whilst I had­n’t yet fin­ished my first drink they was fin­ish­ing their third. They downed the dregs of their beer and with an “I’ve got­ta piss”, head­ed towards the toi­lets.
So there I was all by myself, in a pub full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. I scanned the room, neat­ly cat­a­logu­ing the oth­er patrons: ‘not my type’, ‘not if you paid me’, ‘cute but brain­less’, ‘cute from afar but far from cute’. There were three that fell into the ‘sex as long as I did­n’t have to take to them’ box. But that was­n’t what I was look­ing for that night so I just sat there and sipped my drink. It was at this point that the per­son stand­ing by the bar turned around and looked in my direc­tion.
They was cute, drop dead gor­geous and they was walk­ing towards me.
“Hi.”
So call­ing on all of my wit and charm I came up with the per­fect reply and said, “shup a lop da.”
To which they actu­al­ly smiled.
“I mean, I’m Jan.”
“Max,” they replied. “I know this is real­ly for­ward, but I’ve got­ta go and meet some friends in a few min­utes, so would you mind if we skipped the chit chat and just kissed?”
I blinked. Then reached my left hand behind their neck and pulled us togeth­er.
It does­n’t flow all that well, and the mix­ing of a plur­al form with sin­gu­lar feels clunky, this could be fixed by replac­ing “they was” with “they were”, but that would only add to the con­fu­sion as to how many peo­ple are actu­al­ly in the scene.
Sec­ond, one.
Yes­ter­day evening I was at the pub with a friend of mine, Blue, we were hav­ing a drink and gen­er­al­ly catch­ing up. We were both drink­ing our usu­al, a bar­car­di and coke for me, and a VB for one.
Blue had been wait­ing for a while by the time I arrived, such that whilst I had­n’t yet fin­ished my first drink one was fin­ish­ing one’s third. One downed the dregs of one’s beer and with an “I’ve got­ta piss”, head­ed towards the toi­lets.
So there I was all by myself, in a pub full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. I scanned the room, neat­ly cat­a­logu­ing the oth­er patrons: ‘not my type’, ‘not if you paid me’, ‘cute but brain­less’, ‘cute from afar but far from cute’. There were three that fell into the ‘sex as long as I did­n’t have to take to him’ box. But that was­n’t what I was look­ing for that night so I just sat there and sipped my drink. It was at this point that the per­son stand­ing by the bar turned around and looked in my direc­tion.
One was cute, drop dead gor­geous and one was walk­ing towards me.
“Hi.”
So call­ing on all of my wit and charm I came up with the per­fect reply and said, “shup a lop da.”
To which one actu­al­ly smiled.
“I mean, I’m Jan.”
“Max,” one replied. “I know this is real­ly for­ward, but I’ve got­ta go and meet some friends in a few min­utes, so would you mind if we skipped the chit chat and just kissed?”
I blinked. Then reached my left hand behind one’s neck and pulled us togeth­er.
Okay, this just plain sounds wierd, and over­ly for­mal which real­ly clash­es with the com­mon nature of the dia­logue.
Third, he/she.
Yes­ter­day evening I was at the pub with a friend of mine, Blue, we were hav­ing a drink and gen­er­al­ly catch­ing up. We were both drink­ing our usu­al, a bar­car­di and coke for me, and a VB for him/her.
Blue had been wait­ing for a while by the time I arrived, such that whilst I had­n’t yet fin­ished my first drink he/she was fin­ish­ing his/her third. He/she downed the dregs of his/her beer and with an “I’ve got­ta piss”, head­ed towards the toi­lets.
So there I was all by myself, in a pub full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. I scanned the room, neat­ly cat­a­logu­ing the oth­er patrons: ‘not my type’, ‘not if you paid me’, ‘cute but brain­less’, ‘cute from afar but far from cute’. There were three that fell into the ‘sex as long as I did­n’t have to take to him’ box. But that was­n’t what I was look­ing for that night so I just sat there and sipped my drink. It was at this point that the per­son stand­ing by the bar turned around and looked in my direc­tion.
He/she was cute, drop dead gor­geous and he/she was walk­ing towards me.
“Hi.”
So call­ing on all of my wit and charm I came up with the per­fect reply and said, “shup a lop da.”
To which he/she actu­al­ly smiled.
“I mean, I’m Jan.”
“Max,” he/she replied. “I know this is real­ly for­ward, but I’ve got­ta go and meet some friends in a few min­utes, so would you mind if we skipped the chit chat and just kissed?”
I blinked. Then reached my left hand behind his/her neck and pulled us togeth­er.
There’s a good way to break up the telling of a sto­ry, and still has sex­ist prob­lems because most peo­ple would put the he first. This option also deper­son­alis­es the sto­ry.
Fourth, it.
Yes­ter­day evening I was at the pub with a friend of mine, Blue, we were hav­ing a drink and gen­er­al­ly catch­ing up. We were both drink­ing our usu­al, a bar­car­di and coke for me, and a VB for it.
Blue had been wait­ing for a while by the time I arrived, such that whilst I had­n’t yet fin­ished my first drink it was fin­ish­ing its third. It downed the dregs of its beer and with an “I’ve got­ta piss”, head­ed towards the toi­lets.
So there I was all by myself, in a pub full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. I scanned the room, neat­ly cat­a­logu­ing the oth­er patrons: ‘not my type’, ‘not if you paid me’, ‘cute but brain­less’, ‘cute from afar but far from cute’. There were three that fell into the ‘sex as long as I did­n’t have to take to him’ box. But that was­n’t what I was look­ing for that night so I just sat there and sipped my drink. It was at this point that the per­son stand­ing by the bar turned around and looked in my direc­tion.
It was cute, drop dead gor­geous and it was walk­ing towards me.
“Hi.”
So call­ing on all of my wit and charm I came up with the per­fect reply and said, “shup a lop da.”
To which it actu­al­ly smiled.
“I mean, I’m Jan.”
“Max,” it replied. “I know this is real­ly for­ward, but I’ve got­ta go and meet some friends in a few min­utes, so would you mind if we skipped the chit chat and just kissed?”
I blinked. Then reached my left hand behind its neck and pulled us togeth­er.
Again, it does­n’t sound like I’m actu­al­ly talk­ing about peo­ple.
Fifth, use a gen­der-neu­tral pronoun,like ey.
Yes­ter­day evening I was at the pub with a friend of mine, Blue, we were hav­ing a drink and gen­er­al­ly catch­ing up. We were both drink­ing our usu­al, a bar­car­di and coke for me, and a VB for em.
Blue had been wait­ing for a while by the time I arrived, such that whilst I had­n’t yet fin­ished my first drink ey was fin­ish­ing eir third. Ey downed the dregs of eir beer and with an “I’ve got­ta piss”, head­ed towards the toi­lets.
So there I was all by myself, in a pub full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. I scanned the room, neat­ly cat­a­logu­ing the oth­er patrons: ‘not my type’, ‘not if you paid me’, ‘cute but brain­less’, ‘cute from afar but far from cute’. There were three that fell into the ‘sex as long as I did­n’t have to take to him’ box. But that was­n’t what I was look­ing for that night so I just sat there and sipped my drink. It was at this point that the per­son stand­ing by the bar turned around and looked in my direc­tion.
Ey was cute, drop dead gor­geous and ey was walk­ing towards me.
“Hi.”
So call­ing on all of my wit and charm I came up with the per­fect reply and said, “shup a lop da.”
To which ey actu­al­ly smiled.
“I mean, I’m Jan.”
“Max,” ey replied. “I know this is real­ly for­ward, but I’ve got­ta go and meet some friends in a few min­utes, so would you mind if we skipped the chit chat and just kissed?”
I blinked. Then reached my left hand behind eir neck and pulled us togeth­er.
Okay, it looks strange, very strange. Takes a bit of get­ting used to, but once over that prob­lem there isn’t any­thing much else wrong with it.
So what do you think the gen­ders of my lit­tle sto­ry actu­al­ly are… does it real­ly mat­ter?
The next big ques­tion is if your going to use gen­der neu­tral pro­nouns, which ones should you use. This is a big prob­lem. There are a lot of options to chose from, every author that’s ever tried to deal with this seems to have invent­ed there own answer. How­ev­er I’m not going to try to list all the options, that has been done before, but oth­ers more informed than me. If you inter­est­ed in more infor­ma­tion about Gen­der-neu­tral pro­nouns, check out: Gen­der-neu­tral pro­noun FAQ

Declen­sion of Gen­der-neu­tral Third Per­son­al Pro­nouns

Sub­ject	Object	Pos­ses­sive Adjec­tive	Pos­ses­sive Pro­noun	Reflex­ive	Num­ber	Gen­der
THIRD PERSON
they	them	their	theirs	them­selves	sin­gu­lar	neu­tral
one	one	one’s	one’s	one­self	sin­gu­lar	neu­tral
he/she	him/her	his/her	his/hers	himself/herself	sin­gu­lar	neu­tral
it	it	its	its	itself	sin­gu­lar	neuter
ey	em	eir	eirs	eir­self	sin­gu­lar	neu­tral

Also see:
Part Zero — The prob­lem with the Eng­lish lan­guage is you!
Part One — First per­son pro­nouns
Part Two — Sec­ond per­son pro­nouns
Part Four — Mis­cel­la­neous, Con­clu­sion and Ref­er­ences