They must be looking for it.” In this case, you would use the pronoun “they” because the person you’re talking about could be of any gender. For example, if you found a wallet on the ground, you might say, “I should find the owner of this wallet. However, there are times when you might not know this information. The pronouns he/him/his and she/her/hers indicate the gender of the person being spoken about. “As if I were their well-acquainted friend ( Comedy of Errors, Act IV Scene 3)…” WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “ALL-GENDER”?

“There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me…” However, “they” has been used as a singular pronoun for centuries in the English language!įor example, Shakespeare, whose effect on the English language can’t be overstated, used the singular they in multiple works, including Comedy of Errors: You likely learned that “they” is plural and only used for groups of people, making it grammatically incorrect to use for a single person. Note: Although use of pronouns is a commonplace practice in our society, there are individuals who don’t use pronouns and prefer to go only by their names. Some may also use neopronouns like ze/zir/zirs. For example, instead of saying, “Moishe’s challah is amazing because Moishe uses Moishe’s own special recipe,” you could say, “Moishe’s challah is amazing because he uses his own special recipe.” Common pronoun sets are he/him/his, she/her/hers, and they/them/theirs. Pronouns are words used in the place of nouns, and use is common in the English language to avoid repeating words or phrases.

Referring to a person by their correct pronouns is a small but important way to affirm their identity. We learn in Proverbs 18:21 that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Jewish tradition teaches us that how we use language deeply impacts people’s lives. Updated January 2023 by Chaim Ezra Harrison and Jay Smith THE POWER OF LANGUAGE What’s in a Pronoun?: Third-Person and All-Gender PronounsĪssembled by Dubbs Weinblatt, Essie Shachar-Hill, and Jacob Klein (May 2019)

What does pronoun mean