God and Grammar
This week I am spending Passover with my family. Perhaps inspired by the season, I picked up the newsletter that comes from Kolot Chayeinu (“Voices of Our Lives), the synagogue I used to attend in Brooklyn, New York. I read it cover to cover for the first time in months.
It won’t surprise you that a grammatical issue leapt up at me from the pages of the newsletter. Kathryn Conroy of Kolot Chayeinu writes about the open nature of this progressive congregation:
“The person who prays because they believe that God will personally make a difference in their daily life is not the least bit threatened by the person standing next to them who does not believe in God at all.”
The Singular “They”
Did you spot the issue in Kathryn’s sentence? It has become common for writers to refer to a single person, who could be of either gender, as a “they.” This “singular they” construction is grammatically problematic. Clearly one person does not qualify as a “they,” “their” or “them” (all of which were used in Kathryn’s prose). Yet we refer, perhaps lazily, or even sloppily, to singles as multiples – because it would be challenging or awkward to be grammatically rigorous.
My uncle once created a neutral pronoun for just this situation: fub. It didn’t catch on. So at least for now, we’re still stuck with a lack of a non-gendered singular personal pronoun in the English language.
Given the current state of affairs and my discomfort with the use of the singular “they,” I’ve decided to take on the challenge of improving upon the sentence from Kolot Chayeinu’s newsletter. How would I write this sentence to avoid grammatical detention?
Rewriting the Sentence
One possibility is:
“The person who prays because he or she believes that God will personally make a difference in his or her daily life is not the least bit threatened by the person standing next to him or her who does not believe in God at all.”
Hmmm… not so great. Stilted, right? This is exactly the type of sentence Ms. Conroy was avoiding.
Next option: Gender the language. Here’s what it looks like:
“The woman who prays because she believes that God will personally make a difference in her daily life is not the least bit threatened by the man standing next to her who does not believe in God at all.”
I was surprised to discover that this sentence is much more powerful than the original – poignant even — in addition to being grammatically sound. An image is conjured of an actual woman and man standing next to each other praying, rather than of some vague or possible scenario.
Third option: Make it Plural
“Congregation members who pray because they believe that God will personally make a difference in their daily lives are not the least bit threatened by those standing next to them who do not believe in God at all.”
This sentence is grammatically correct, though in my opinion it doesn’t pack the punch of the gendered option.
The Essay Expert is a Traditionalist
My vote for Kathryn’s sentence is to use a gendered version. And I prefer even the somewhat stilted language of the rigorously neutral option to the grammatically incorrect original. However, I am a traditionalist. The grammar books don’t necessarily agree with me.
Not every situation lends itself to gendered language as well as does Kathryn’s sentence. Sometimes our choice is between the “singular they” and a stilted “he/she” in order to avoid politically incorrect gendered language. And sometimes making the subject plural does the trick quite gracefully.
My practice in these situations is to pluralized the subject or to use “he or she” rather than “they.” Or, if there are repeated references to a non-gendered “person” or “someone” in a piece of prose, I might alternate between the masculine and feminine pronouns. When in doubt, I err on the side of feminine pronouns. After all, there are hundreds of years of usage of the traditional “he” to balance things out.
Wikipedia Speaks
Here’s what Wikipedia reports on the acceptability of the singular “they”:
There has been considerable debate as to the acceptability of singular they. Regarding usage, The Chicago Manual of Style notes:
On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he) in reference to no one in particular. On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers.
With the 14th edition (1993), the Manual briefly revised its neutral stance to actually recommend “singular use of they and their“, noting a “revival” of this usage and citing “its venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare.” However, regret regarding that printing is expressed at its website; and with the current 15th edition (2003), it has returned to its original neutral position.
The 2011 translation of the New International Version Bible utilizes singular they instead of “he” or “he or she”, refelecting [sic] changes in English usage. The translators commissioned a study of modern English usage and determined that singular “‘they’ (‘them’/'their’) is by far the most common way that English-language speakers and writers today refer back to singular antecedents such as ‘whoever,anyone,somebody,a person,no one,’ and the like.”
Your Turn
What’s your opinion about how to handle the “singular they”? Do you have any sample sentences to send me as a challenge? Do you see any other ways to write Kathryn’s sentence? And wouldn’t you love to be part of a community where the openness Kathryn describes is a reality?
