Themself

Monday October 22nd 2007, 11:41 am Printer Friendly Version
Filed under:Language
Posted By: Matt

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?


3 Comments »

  1. 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

  2. Hmm, I’m undecided about themself. One one hand, it makes it looks singularer (this is definitely not a word) which helps with the potential ambiguity of singular they. On the other hand, you (hypothetical you, another underappreciated pronoun) treat “they” as plural in almost every other way: you say “they are” not “they is”. So is it “they are doing it themself”?

    Comment by John — 11/6/2008 @ 3:25 pm

  3. I’m undecided sexpornoizle.org about themself. One one hand, it makes it looks singularer porno izle (this is definitely not a word) which helps with the potential ambiguity of singular they

    Comment by Anjelina — 11/17/2008 @ 7:33 pm

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