Well, that was different.
Words of the Year, especially from Merriam-Webster, have the tendency to reflect what's going on in the U.S., especially as regards politics, it seems (that stuff infects everything). The Word of the Year for 2008 in the height of the Great Recession, for example, was "bailout"; in 2006, when we were receiving mixed messages on the Iraq War and trust in government reached its lowest level (at that point), it was "truthiness."
This year, while there is a political element to Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year--"they"--it's also recognition that language evolves, which won't sit well with grammar grouches.
The dictionary said lookups for they increased 313 percent over the previous year. It notes on its blog that "although our lookups are often driven by events in the news, the dictionary is also a primary resource for information about language itself, and the shifting use of they has been the subject of increasing study and commentary in recent years."
Part of the renewed interest in they comes from its use as a pronoun for people who identify as nonbinary--"relating to or being a person who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that is neither entirely male nor entirely female," according to Merriam-Webster--but it's also because "English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence they has been used for this purpose for over 600 years."
I have at least one friend who is a huge fan of the singular they, and commented on one of my columns a few years back, "Maybe there's even hope for the 'singular they.' 'Whenever a student told me they wanted a really good grade, I'd tell them they'd have to do the extra-credit assignments.' 'Twould let our writin' catch up with our speakin'."
The Associated Press Stylebook did just that in 2017 when it added they as a singular gender-neutral pronoun. Lead editor for the stylebook Paula Froke told The Washington Post, "[W]e offer new advice for two reasons: recognition that the spoken language uses they as singular, and we also recognize the need for a pronoun for people who don't identify as a he or a she." She also emphasized that writers may "write around" it to avoid awkward construction. (I similarly advise writing around words like who/whom when you might not be sure of the correct grammatical use.) The Post, by the way, has used the singular they since 2015.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette follows the AP guidance on they, copy desk chief Sandra Tyler told me last week, but said, "It will take some getting used to." As a former copy desk resident and recovering sometime grammar grouch, I concur. But I know it's been used as a singular pronoun since at least 1375, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, not falling out of favor till the 18th century. It's only recently that there's really been any controversy over the singular they ... except among grammar grouches.
Merriam-Webster wrote, "Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal ... revealed in April during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Equality Act that her child is gender-nonconforming and uses they. Singer Sam Smith announced in September that they now use they and them as pronouns. And the American Psychological Association's blog officially recommended that singular they be preferred in professional writing over 'he or she' when the reference is to a person whose gender is unknown or to a person who prefers they."
The AP Stylebook does note that clarity is the top priority in usage of they, since many people are still unfamiliar or uncomfortable with it being used to denote a nonbinary person, and advises explaining in the text of stories that the person prefers that pronoun.
But what about the people who say it's too hard to use the singular they? In most cases, they probably already have been doing so in everyday conversation without realizing it (since most of us don't worry so much about our grammar when speaking to friends).
Predictably, there were those who got riled up over Merriam-Webster's choice, but as activist Miranda Boyd wrote on Twitter: "Imagine being mad at a dictionary because you never bothered to look up how people have been using a word for literally centuries. That's like half the people in here."
Some people may feel like author Jen Doll, who, while not degrading its usage for nonbinary people, wrote in The Atlantic in 2013: "Every time I see a singular they, my inner grammatical spirit aches. ... The easy fix is not necessarily the best one, and they is not the solution to our pronoun ills. The singular they is ear-hurting, eye-burning, soul-ravaging, mind-numbing syntactic folly. Stop the singular they. Stop it now."
Sorry, Jen. I think with this Word of the Year designation, that ship has sailed. But I'm sure there's a support group out there somewhere for you ... maybe Grammar Grouches Anonymous.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com. Email her at blooper@adgnewsroom.com.
Editorial on 12/18/2019