You might have noticed pronouns listed in some of your colleagues’ and friends’ email signatures or social media profiles. You might have even been prompted to list your own pronouns in your profiles and communications. While historically only the personal pronouns he/him/his and she/her/hers were used for individuals, based on their perceived gender, pronoun usage is broader and more descriptive today.
Many people use gender-neutral language like they/them/theirs and zie/hir/hirs because they feel these pronouns express their gender identity more accurately than she or he. The most common gender-neutral pronoun is the singular they. Today, it’s not uncommon to see the singular they as the default neutral pronoun. It’s what we use on the Grammarly blog, and for writers across the internet, it’s a concise, catch-all pronoun that can fit just about any sentence. However, language is constantly evolving, and new types of singular third-person pronouns have emerged that refer to people entirely without reference to gender, such as noun-self pronouns.
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