We’ve all written it before: If one is to know the truth then they must follow the sign.
Ops. Your agreement is off. If “one” – singular, and then “they” is plural. Of course the common belief is that if you are talking about one person you typically know if that person is a he or a she, but what happens when you use a single person in a broad sense of the word – if it could be any one person? It use to be that you used “he” or “his”. However, today the equalization of genders has taken shape and it is no longer gender-neutral to have used “he”. And the fact is this is one problem that needs to be addressed.
Writers have taken to avoiding this problem. They have either taken to using only the plural form of third-person – “If they are to know the truth then they must follow the sign.” Or incorporate the ” S/he, (S)he, he/she, he or she, him or her” combinations into their writing – “If one is to know the truth then he or she must follow the signs.”
Both have serious flaws or disadvantages. To use only the third-person plural is not bad, but in doing so we are removing a powerful writing tool. To suggest that it could be any one of a multitude of people is a great way to personalize a generalization. To lose such a tool is to lose part of the English language.
The other choice – these” he/she” combinations creates many problems as well. For starters when using them it forces the reader to stumble over the words at points. It interrupts the flow of the writing. Then there is the question as to if this combination is actually gender-neutral. In the case of” he or she” and “him or her” the question remains which should go first – the “he” or the “she”. He/him tends to take the place in the first for a couple reasons: One – because “H” comes before “S” in the alphabet and two – because “he/him” use to be used to indicate singular person, male or female. It is precisely this second reason that has people asking if it is really gender-neutral. No matter what way you look at, “he” before “she” or “she” before “he”, one gender comes before the other.
There is, however, a very simple solution to this problem: To make “they” and “them” both singular and plural.
This is not only the easiest solution to the problem but the most logical. First off, most of the time we have taken to using it in a sentence in the singular fashion (as in the sentence at the beginning of this article). It comes natural to us to use these third-person pronouns in the first person. That brings us to our second reason: It is not a big change to the English language. Other suggestions for fixing this gender-neutral problem include creating a new word or words for the third-person singular, which while making sense is hard to incorporate into daily life. However, when it comes to the idea of making “they” and “them” singular as well as plural it is an idea that is easily accepted and incorporated into our daily lives. Not only have we been naturally gravitating towards it these past few years, but there are several places in the English language where we already use a word as both singular and plural, so we don’t find the use odd or weird in any way.
It may seem a trivial matter to some, but this issue is important when it comes to equality. To accept gender-neutrality in the English language is to accept equalization of the sexes.
