In spoken English, it is becoming common for people to use \u201cthey\u201d while referring to the singular. A person might do this when they do not know the gender of the one\u00a0they are speaking about.\u00a0(Did you notice that I already did it?)
\nInstead of saying\u00a0\u201che or she\u201d and in order to avoid the cumbersome work of asking and researching about the gender of the person, one\u00a0might just use \u201cthey\u201d.<\/p>\n
“I have no idea\u00a0who the driver of this car is, but they should slow down or they’ll kill us all!”<\/p>\n
When it comes to writing, however, it is not acceptable to use this singular \u201cthey\u201d. It might cause confusion to the reader. Consider the following example:
\n\u201cThe author will acknowledge\u00a0as many as they desire\u00a0in their research article\u201d.<\/p>\n
It is not really clear whether these “they” and “their” refer to the author or to the publisher or to whom.\u00a0This can be avoided if we use \u201che\/she\u201d as follows:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe author will acknowledge\u00a0as many as he\/she desires in his\/her research article\u201d.<\/p>\n
Using the singular “they” in writing is neither formal not academic. However, in informal writing, it can be accepted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In spoken English, it is becoming common for people to use \u201cthey\u201d while referring to the singular. A person might<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3087,"featured_media":8062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,137,1],"tags":[1269,140,1268,1266,1272,1267,1253,1271,1265,1270],"class_list":["post-8031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-learning","category-uncategorized","tag-academic","tag-english","tag-formal","tag-he","tag-informal","tag-she","tag-singular","tag-speaking","tag-they","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\n