The Rise of Epicene They

Abstract

A pronoun pattern that is common in both spoken and written English is some form of they with singular, generic antecedents, as in, “ Everyone was so pleased with themselves.” This article addresses the question of how long such a pattern has been in the language and how a pattern that clearly violates number agreement could become so ubiquitous. An examination of recent scholarship as well as the historical record reveals that the origins of this usage rest in the fourteenth century and that its frequency has increased since then. Using current theories of agreement, the author presents a hypothesis for how and when this pattern could have entered the language. Further examination of the historical record supports the hypothesis that loss of grammatical gender in the thirteenth century was crucial for the introduction of generic they into the language.