SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY ANNE CURZANS
ome of the most open-minded, inclusive peo-
ple I know struggle with the singular pronoun
“they.” And while it’s hard to unlearn what we
were taught was grammatically “wrong,” it’s
worth doing. To start, le t’s clear away all the non-
a rguments that clutter the “they” debate to get to the
heart of the matter.
Critics often start from the premise that “they”
cannot be singular because a pronoun cannot be
singular and plural at the same time. That argument
is historically, socially and linguistically wrong. A
pronoun most certainly can be singular and plural at
the same time, as demonstrated by English’s very
own pronoun “you.” And, when we look at the record,
we discover the pronoun “they” has been used as a
singular generic pronoun, alongside its plural uses,
for hundreds of years. Shakespeare and Austen both
used singular “they” this wa y, just as many English
speakers do now. “But to expose the former faults of
any person,” noted Jane Bennet in “Pride and
Prejudice,” “without knowing what their present
feelings were, seemed unjustifiable.”
In other words, the use of “they” as a singular
pronoun, when the gender of the person is unknown
or irrelevant, is nothing new. It’s considered wrong
only because 200-plus years of grammarians have
told us it is wrong, without solidly justifying that
judgment. And whatever ambiguity the singular
generic “they” may cause, it is clearly something
speakers and writers can manage, as I will explain.
What is relatively new is the use of singular “they”
to refer to specific people who identify as nonbinary.
This leads to a construction such as, “Alex is spending
their senior year in Alaska.” I have heard critics
describe this construction as unclear, ambiguous,
silly and/or unnecessary. None of these criticisms
holds up well.
Let’s start with the issue of clarity. This argument
has been pulled out triumphantly against all uses of
singular “they” for years, and it isn’t convincing.
First, in many instances, we employ singular “they”
exactly because the gender of the antecedent noun
(the person we are referring to) is unknown or
irrelevant, as in: “A serious runner replaces their
shoes every few months.” The ambiguity about the
runner’s gender is intentional. And there is usually
no ambiguity about number: In a s entence such as
“My neighbor washes their car every da y,” it is
unambiguous that I am talking about one person,
and that person is my neighbor.
Second, in the cases where there genuinely is
ambiguity about the referent of singular “they” (e.g.,
“I was talking to my mother and her friend, and they
said ...”), we should rewrite the sentence. That is
simply solid writing advice about any potentially
confusing sentence. And other pronouns are also
susceptible to this kind of ambiguity.
Third, when “they” is a person’s pronoun, the
meaning of the pronoun is not ambiguous: It means
the person does not identify within “he”/“she” binary
and identifies as “they.” And while, right now, it might
be grammatically unfamiliar for many to refer back
to Alex as “they” in “Alex is spending their senior year
in Alaska,” it is far from incomprehensible.
In response, some critics make the case that if
there is going to be a nonbinary singular pronoun in
English, it would be easier or “more natural” to use a
made-up pronoun such as “ze” or “thon.” The pro-
noun “they” already has enough on its grammatical
plate. Fair enough: A pronoun like “ze” is distinctive,
and it has seen some use. But it is no more natural to
consciously insert a made-up pronoun into the
language than it is to consciously expand the usage of
an existing pronoun.
And, at least right now, singular nonbinary “they”
has gotten traction, perhaps because it is already
established in grammar as a singular pronoun. Many
people who identify as nonbinary identify as “they.”
That is not debatable.
So that leaves the question: If this use of singular
“they” as a nonbinary singular pronoun is new for
you, do you think it’s worth working to adopt into
your speech and writing?
The answer comes down to respect. When some-
one says to you that their pronoun is “they/them/
their,” it is respectful to use their pronoun, even if
uncomfortable and even if you sometimes make a
mistake. If someone says to you, “My name is Xavier,
but I go by Jo,” it would be weird at best, and in most
cases downright rude, to say, “ Well, I think that’s silly
and I’m going to call you Xavier,” or to sa y, “Well,
that’s hard for me to remember, so I’m going to call
you Andy.”
Someone’s name is part of their identity, and it is
respectful to remember and use their name. Some-
one’s pronouns are also part of their identity, and
identities deserve to be honored.
Debates about singular “they” come from a place of
deep caring about language and how it is used. The
good news is that we can care about clarity, precision
and inclusive pronouns all at the same time.The writer is the Geneva Smitherman collegiate professor
of English and linguistics at the University of Michigan,
where she is also dean of the College of Literature,
Science, and the Arts.‘They’ has been a
singular pronoun
for centuries
DRAWING BOARDBY TIM CAMPBELLB Y DAVID HORSEY FOR THE SEATTLE TIMESBY JOE HELLERBY DREW SHENEMANT
his week found the Biden White House
bollixed up in debates over such matters
as dental benefits to people on Medicare
and free community college tuition as the
Freedom to Vote Act was getting unceremonious-
ly crushed in the Senate by a united Republican
minority. I f any pending Senate action warranted
President Biden’s — a nd the nation’s — u ndivided
attention, it was the federal voting rights bill to
protect and expand access to the ballot box.
Yet when a handful of Democratic senators led
by Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar
(Minn.), Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.) and Cory
Booker (N.J.) moved to close debate on a motion
to proceed to consideration of that critical bill,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.),
confident in the knowledge that Biden has failed
to yet mobilize sufficient public support against
him, withheld the 10 Republican votes needed.
The importance of what occurred in the Senate
chamber Wednesday shouldn’t be overshadowed
by attention to the rest of Biden’s agenda, his
upcoming summit meetings or navel-gazing over
any other single issue.
Legislation deemed critical to our democracy
by the bill’s sponsors, including Sens. Tim Kaine
(D-Va.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), suc-
cumbed to the “big lie” told by former Republican
president Donald Trump that he did not lose in a
fair and free election in November. Republicans
who blocked the Freedom to Vote Act bill are
standing arm in arm with nearly 20 Trump-
p oisoned states that have passed laws undercut-
ting democracy.Let’s be clear: Obstructing the Freedom to Vote
Act was as subversive as state voter-suppression
actions to roll back access to the vote, as well as
the Jan. 6 storming and desecration of the Capitol
by insurrectionists intent on halting congres-
sional certification of valid presidential election
results.
Nonetheless, when this crucial federal voting
rights measure to correct state voting rights
wrongs was put forward in the Senate on Wednes-
day, the nation’s attention, including Biden’s,
seemed focused elsewhere.
That cannot be allowed to stand.
Voting rights are not just one more item affixed
to an ambitious presidential agenda.
Equal access to voting is an American bedrock.
It may not ma tter much in Russia or Saudi Arabia,
China or Cuba. It matters here and now. And our
country has gone through hell to reach this point.
It took a bloody Civil War to win freedom for
enslaved Black people. The Constitution required
changes by amendments. Throngs marched.
Many were bloodied. People died. The right to
reach the ballot box came hard. Harder still to
keep it.
That is what the struggle is all about today.
Don’t be fooled.
Closing polling locations is not a matter of
conserving real estate. Purging voting rolls is not
done in pursuit of tidy paperwork. Limiting
vote-by-mail isn’t aimed at giving postal workers
a break. And none of t hese voting restrictions are
about “election integrity.”
Unnecessarily long voting lines and disappear-
ing drop-off ballot boxes are as helpful to the aims
of toda y’s voting rights opponents as the noose
and cross-burnings were to the violent voting-
rights foes of yesteryear.
So the response of all concerned about preserv-
ing our democracy must be to push back against
McConnell and his henchmen even harder.
A majority of Senate (with the vice president’s
tiebreaking vote) and House members have
signed on to protect those hard-fought rights.
But Senate Republicans, clearly outvoted but
equally determined, have a relic of Jim Crow in
their arsenal — the filibuster. Their 50 votes
prevented the Senate from reaching the required
60-vote supermajority to overcome the long-
standing filibuster rule.
At issue for the Senate, White House and
nation is as it has always been when the question
turns to fulfilling America’s basic promise: Shall a
willful minority be allowed to prevent democracy
from working?
We have a moral obligation to collectively
shout “No,” and then act, by all means necessary,
to overcome that Republican impediment and
fulfill the precious right to vote.
Anything less spells abdication.COLBERT I. KINGNo issue is more
important than
voting rights
Equal access to voting is an
American bedrock. I t matters here
and now. And our country has gone
through hell to reach this point.
“It’s fair for activists to continue to push. Every
constituency has their issue. If you ask immigra-
tion folks, they’ll tell you their issue is a life-or-
death issue, too.”
— Anonymous White House official discussing
voting rights, as quoted in the AtlanticI
t is a b it of a bummer that the Freedom to Vote
Act died peacefully in the Senate surrounded
by its loved ones. (It is survived by the
filibuster.) But don ’t worry! The abili ty to
actually vote in elections is just one thing that
voters care about, and it’s certainly not the only
thing that binds all of them before and beyond
anything else. It certainly isn’t something the
White House and the Senate’s wafer-thin majority
should be throwing all their weight behind lest a
creeping array of state policy changes combine to
undermine a deeply fundamental right. It’s just one
issue!Every group has som ething that it cares about.
Some people want a carbon tax. Other people want
all the trees to become electricity. Some people
want to make sure that they are able to vote, that
their vote will be counted and that whoever wins
the election will get to govern. Other people would
prefer to keep the filibuster!
We’ve got to weigh this desire to “vote” in a way
that is “counted” against all the other things that
are in democracy. Some people are saying, “I think
it is essential for our democratic republic’s contin-
ued existence that people get to vote,” but that is
just one perspective. Another perspective is “Hey, if
we gerrymander any further, my district will look
like a cool jack-o’-lantern, and I don’t want to do
anything that could jeopardize that outcome!”
If we start taking some people’s concerns more
seriously than others, that’s not going to feel great
for everybody, so we really can’t do that. Some
people want to turn right, others want to turn left,others want to ma ke sure th at the car has gas in it at
all. These are all equivalent!
Besides, this is America, where a stunningly
large percentage of people spent enormous chunks
of our history unable to vote, and the country seems
so proud of those times. Historically, voting rights
are a novelty — not added to the Constitution until
15 whole amendments in! Can anything that
recently added really be more essential than other
priorities? Generations of Americans survived
without them! Dare we make their suffering mean-
ingless by wanting to stop it from happening again?
Look, you win some, you lose some. Ideally, thatwould be how elections worked, too, but it ulti-
mately might also be fun to see what other ways
they could work. Maybe we see what happens if
nobody gets to vote early! Maybe we see what
happens if vast clouds of dark money get to billow
helpfully into every race! Maybe we see what
happens if the voting rights of communities of color
get especially jeopardized! Maybe we even apply
the principle that if there aren’t equal or greater
numbers of Republican votes compared with Dem-
ocratic ones in every district, we can’t say an
election was fair!
The point is, there are lots of people on all the
sides. A majority of people want to ma ke it easier to
vote; some Republicans don’t. So, you know, the
nation is polarized and divided, and it’s impossible
to know which side should prevail.
Sure, it sounds a little bad for democracy. But
democracy is not something every voter cares
about anyway. After all, it’s just one issue.ALEXANDRA PETRIDon’t worry! Voting is just one of many priorities voters have.
Look, you win some,
you lose some.