---
title: "Guest Post: To each their own"
date: 2011-04-16
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> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL.

# Guest Post: To each their own

*The following is a guest post by Marcia Johnston. Marcia lives in Portland, Oregon, at the intersection of Writing, User Experience, Information Architecture, and Content Strategy. She is the president of Marcia Riefer Johnston, Inc.*

[![](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/orangebar.png)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2009/04/orangebar.png)

![Marcia Johnston](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/MarciaJohnston.jpg)

*They* has gone singular. So have *their, them,* and *themselves*. We're assailed every day by sentences like these:

- “What's annoying to me isn't **someone** using **their** phone at the table, it's the people who think I shouldn't use mine.”
- “Equity is the right of every**person** to advance **their** well-being.”
- “This is a great chance for **anyone** looking to start **their** own business.”
- “Open the profile of a **friend**, and add **their** phone number so it's easy to call **them**.”
- “Health management allows **one** to take care of **themselves**.”
- “As a drowning man wants air, as the **lover** seeks **their** beloved, so must you focus on what you want.”

I understand how we arrived at this unfortunate unpluraling of pronouns. English fails us. It offers us no word for his-or-her. We have no *lui,* which those lucky French can say when they mean *to him or her*. Our singular third-person pronouns — *he, his, him, himself, she, hers, her, herself* — are all gender-bound. None of these stand-ins stands in perfectly for *person*or *anyone* or*each.*

- *He*("To each *his* own") covers both masculine and feminine conventionally. But this usage has fallen out of favor because of its apparent bias.
- *She*("To each *her* own") simply reverses the bias.
- *S/he* ("To each *his/her* own") is unpronounceable.
- *He or she* ("To each *his or her* own") works, but few say it.

People who reject these imperfect choices have to fill the need somehow. With alarming frequency, they turn to the conveniently gender-neutral*,*if inconveniently plural, *they*. ("To each *their* own.")

Co-opting *they* is no solution! This practice has become so common, though, that most contemporary style guides now acknowledge the trend as irreversible.

A moment of silence, please, while I recite the Serenity Prayer, especially the part about accepting what I can't change.

Technology has exploded the use of the singular *their*. Biznik tells me that Jane, whom it recognizes as J-a-n-e, wants to add me to *their* network. LinkedIn reports that J-o-h-n has updated *their* profile. Biznik and LinkedIn don't finesse male-or-female nouns here. They n-e-u-t-e-r Shannon and John.

We can do better. We don't have the singular pronouns we want, but we have acceptable alternatives.

- Turn singulars into plurals. (“As **lovers** seek **their** beloveds…”)
- Go ahead, use *his or her*. (“As the **lover** seeks **his or her**beloved…”)
- Switch occasionally between feminine and masculine. (**lover**… **his**, **lover**… **her**)
- Switch to a direct address: *you*. (“**Lover**, seek **your** beloved…”)
- Switch to the more inclusive *we*. (“As we **lovers** seek **our** beloveds…”)
- Remove the pronoun altogether. (“As the **lover** seeks **the** beloved…”)

A person must stand his/her ground.

A person must stand their ground.

Stand your ground.

*Marcia invites all word lovers to visit her blog, [Word Power](http://marciarieferjohnston.wordpress.com/), or to email her at (email address hidden). To save her contact information instantly to your smartphone, use any barcode-scanner app to scan this QR code:
[![MarciaQRcode](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/MarciaQRcode.png)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2011/04/MarciaQRcode.png)
*