Themself
I’ve become totally enamored with singular they, which provides a completely natural-feeling solution to the thorny problem of gender-neutral pronouns. As a consequence, I just found myself writing “themself” and doing a double take when my spell checker flagged it. A little research revealed that the Language Log has been there already. From my perspective, themself is a logical corollary of singular they, and I’ll be using it unashamedly in my writing. After all, 1.6 million Google hits can’t be wrong, can they?
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I had the same experience just now while proofreading a translation.
I will be using it too, as it sounds the most natural of the available options in the circumstances.
You have my full (belated) support!
Comment by BOB — 1/31/2008 @ 10:24 am