If you’ve ever used the English language, you’re probably already aware that the word they is most commonly used as a third-person plural personal pronoun to refer to multiple entities as a collective. You may also be aware that this same word is sometimes also used as a singular third-person personal pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified gender or a person who identifies as non-binary.
English teachers have been vocally condemning the use of the pronoun they to refer to a singular antecedent for years and most people who have gone through the United States public education system have probably been told at some point that using the pronoun in this manner is “wrong.” In this article, however, I intend to argue that it is (and should be) completely grammatically acceptable to use the pronoun they to refer to a singular individual.
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