Free PDF guide to possessives in English
Is the word “they” singular or plural? The answer is not as simple as it seems!
You probably learned that “they / them / their” are plural, referring to multiple people:
- I have three brothers. I love them.
- My kids put on their coats.
- Twenty people attended the class, and they were all beginners.
However, there are some situations in English where we use they/them/their referring to one person. I’ll show you how it works!
But first, I want to offer you a free gift – click here to get PDF guide to possessives in English – words like my, your, his, her, their, etc. and it also includes a quiz.
Singular “they / them / their”
Ok. When do we use “they / them / their” referring to one person?
It’s when we don’t know the person’s gender, or when we’re speaking about a person in general and the gender doesn’t matter. Let’s look at some examples:
“Someone left their book in the classroom.” – I’m talking about one person, but I don’t know who, so I can’t use “he” or “she.” That’s why I say “Someone left their book.”
Here’s another one: “If anyone calls, tell them I’m busy.” – again, I’m imagining one person calling me, but that person could be male or female, so I just use the word “them”
Or if I’m looking for a job, I might say to a friend “Could you ask your boss if they know of any job openings?” – when I don’t know if my friend’s boss is a man or a woman. The boss is one person of unknown gender, so I use “they.”
One more example: “Each student must do their own work.” Each student is singular, I’m talking about every student individually, one by one – every individual student (male or female) must do their own work.
In the past, people used to write “Each student must do his or her own work” – and that is also correct, but it’s quicker and more common nowadays to say “their own work.”
We could also change the sentence to say “Students / all students must do their own work” – some people prefer this because it seems to match plural students with plural “their.”
You can also see this in the sentence “A doctor should always listen to their patients.” – I’m talking about any doctor in general, male or female, so I use the singular “their.”
But again, we could also change it to “Doctors should always listen to their patients” if you prefer.
So really the most common place you’ll see singular “they / them / their” is when using words like somebody/someone, anybody/anyone, everybody/everyone, or nobody/no one. Those words are all grammatically singular in English.
- Somebody parked their car in the wrong spot.
- This gym is for anyone who wants to improve themselves/themself.
- Everyone thinks they’re smarter than average.
- No one was prepared for their interview.
Note that we use singular verbs:
- anyone wants, not anyone want
- everyone thinks, not everyone think
- no one was, not no one were
But we use they, them, and their to refer to these individual people because we don’t know their gender.
Hope that helps clarify things!
Again, if you want to master all the different possessives – when to use my vs. mine, how to use our, your, his, her, and so on – download the free PDF guide + quiz.
English grammar can be confusing, but I can make it clear to you!
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