# Singular they: its history from Chaucer's day to APA 7

**Is singular they correct, and what do APA, MLA, Chicago and AP say about it?** Singular they has been used in English since the 1300s; the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest example was copied before 1375. APA 7 endorsed it in 2019, for a person who uses they and for a generic person. MLA encourages it, Chicago accepted the generic use in formal writing in 2024, and AP allowed it in limited cases in 2017.

Published 2026-09-24 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/singular-they-from-chaucer-to-apa

Singular they is they, them and their used for one person: "everyone has their own view", or a named person who uses they. It is not new. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest example was copied before 1375, and grammarians, dictionaries and style guides have argued about it since the eighteenth century. APA 7 endorsed it in 2019, Merriam-Webster added a sense for nonbinary people that year, and Chicago accepted the generic use in formal writing only in 2024.

EdCitation publishes this guide, built from dictionaries, the style guides' own pages, scanned eighteenth-century grammars and an Act of Parliament, read on 23 and 24 September 2026. It reports what each source says and takes no position on anyone's identity. In an assignment, what counts is the style the brief names; EdCitation's free [Check your paper](https://edcitation.com/check) reads that style, with its edition, out of the instructions.

## How old is singular they?

At least 650 years old. The OED's sense for they with an antecedent such as "each person" or "everyone" opens with *William of Palerne*, in a copy made before 1375 of a poem composed around 1350: "Hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt..til þei neyȝþed so neiȝh" (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.). Baron (2018), writing for the OED, glosses it as each man hurrying "till they drew near". A second sense, for a generic individual such as "a person" or "the student", has evidence from before 1450.

The record runs on from there. The OED quotes Fielding's *Tom Jones* in 1749, "as how could they help it", and Lord Chesterfield in 1759 on "a person" of gloomy temper: "they cannot help it". Merriam-Webster's usage note adds Shakespeare, "every one to rest themselves betake", and Jane Austen, "I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly" (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Merriam-Webster (2016) dates consistent singular use to the late 1300s and quotes an 1881 letter by Emily Dickinson that even has "themself".

### What about Chaucer?

The line most often offered as Chaucer's singular they is from the Pardoner's prologue: "whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, / They wol come up". Both texts we read print "He" instead: Skeat's second edition of 1900 has "He wol com up" (Chaucer, 1900), and so does Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website, spelled "come". The OED entry does not quote Chaucer. The usage dates from Chaucer's lifetime, as the OED shows, but the famous line could not be confirmed.

## Who decided singular they was wrong?

Grammar writers of the eighteenth century, who objected that a plural pronoun cannot take a singular antecedent (Baron, 2018). The quotations above show that writers never fully obeyed them.

### Fisher's generic he

A. Fisher's *A New Grammar* ran to many editions. The earliest we could read is a fourth, printed in Newcastle upon Tyne and catalogued as 1754, though the date's last figure is hard to read on the scan. It says the masculine answers to a general name covering both sexes, with the example "Any Person who knows what he says" (Fisher, 1754), quoted with a modern s. We did not see a first edition.

### Lindley Murray's corrections

Murray's *English Grammar*, printed in York in 1795, requires every pronoun to agree with its antecedent in gender, number and person, then lists breaches for learners to correct. One is "Can any one, on their entrance into the world", to be mended to "on his entrance" (Murray, 1795).

### An Act of Parliament

On 10 June 1850 [an Act "for shortening the Language used in Acts of Parliament"](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/13-14/21/enacted) provided, in section IV, that words importing the masculine gender include females, and in the same sentence that the singular includes the plural and the plural the singular. From then on a statute could say he and mean anyone.

### The case against the grammarians

Bodine (1975), in *Language in Society*, argued that singular they was accepted and widespread before the prescriptive movement, that the attack on it was socially motivated, and that it survived in speech through two and a half centuries of "official" proscription. Baron (2018) compares you, once plural and now singular, which nobody calls an error.

## When did the dictionaries recognise singular they?

Merriam-Webster and the OED had long recorded the generic use; what 2019 added was a sense for a named person who uses they.

- **Merriam-Webster, September 2019:** the entry was expanded with the sense "used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary", with a note that themself is seeing increasing use (Merriam-Webster, 2019b). In December it made they its word of the year, after lookups rose 313% on the previous year, and said the generic use goes back more than 600 years (Merriam-Webster, 2019a).
- **Oxford English Dictionary, October 2019:** the quarterly update added sense 2c of they, for a person who has "typically asked to be referred to as they", with matching senses for them, themself and themselves (Oxford English Dictionary, 2019). Its earliest evidence is a 2009 post on Twitter. The entry still labels the singular senses "irregular" and notes that the use "has sometimes been considered erroneous" (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.).

## What do APA, MLA, Chicago and AP say about singular they?

All four accept they for a person who uses it. They differ on the generic use, and each change has a date.

| Guide | Generic use (a person, everyone) | A person who uses they | When it changed |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| APA 7 | Use it; he or she alone is never generic | Always use the person's own pronoun | 7th edition, 2019 (Section 4.18) |
| APA 6 (blog) | Not supported; reword or pluralise | Use it | November 2015 |
| MLA | Encourages writers to accept it | Always follow the person's pronoun | MLA Style Center, 4 March 2020 |
| Chicago 18 | Acceptable in formal writing (5.51, 5.266) | Accepted (5.52) | 18th edition, 2024 |
| Chicago 17 | Speech and informal writing; avoid in formal | Accepted, even in formal writing | 17th edition, 2017 |
| AP | Limited cases; rewording preferred | Use the name, or explain the pronoun | 24 March 2017 |

### APA

In November 2015 APA's blog said writers should use they for transgender and gender nonconforming people who use it, but that most formal style guides, the *Publication Manual*, Chicago and AP among them, did not support the generic use; it offered plurals, articles or "he or she" instead (Lee, 2015). On 31 October 2019 the same author announced that the seventh edition endorses singular they, making it "officially good practice in scholarly writing" (Lee, 2019). The rule is Section 4.18 of the manual and 2.18 of the *Concise Guide*, new to the seventh edition (American Psychological Association, 2025); the manual's wider story is in [the history of APA Style](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/the-history-of-apa-style).

### MLA

The MLA Style Center names two uses, specific and generic, and says the MLA "encourages writers to accept its use to avoid making or enabling assumptions about gender" (Modern Language Association, 2020). For a generic person it rules out he or she alone and alternating the two. We did not read the ninth edition of the *MLA Handbook*, so its wording is not quoted here.

### Chicago

In April 2017, announcing its 17th edition, Chicago accepted generic they in speech and informal writing, advised avoiding it in formal writing without forbidding it, and accepted they in any writing for a specific person who does not use he or she (CMOS Shop Talk, 2017). The 18th edition changed the formal advice: generic they is now acceptable there, for an indefinite pronoun (someone forgot their coat), an unknown person, or an identity that must be concealed (CMOS Shop Talk, 2024). Chicago's Q&A places the rules at 5.51, 5.52 and 5.266 (The Chicago Manual of Style, n.d.).

### AP

AP announced its change at the American Copy Editors Society conference in St Petersburg, Florida, on 24 March 2017. The entry calls they acceptable "in limited cases" when other wording is overly awkward, says rewording is always preferable, and, for a person who asks not to be called he or she, prefers the name; where they is essential, the story should explain the person's preference (Easton, 2017, read in an archived copy). The Stylebook is paid, and we did not read any later version of the entry.

## How do you use singular they in APA 7?

Follow APA's own page, point by point (American Psychological Association, 2025):

1. **Use each person's own pronoun**, including they when that is the pronoun the person uses.
2. **Use they for a generic person** whose gender is unknown or irrelevant. APA's example: "An employee can receive a bonus if they attend the training."
3. **Do not use he or she alone** for a generic person. Write "he or she" only when you know those pronouns fit the people described, and never "(s)he" or "s/he".
4. **Keep the verb plural after they** ("they are") and singular after a singular noun ("Casey is").
5. **Choose themselves or themself.** Both are accepted; themselves is more common.
6. **Reword if it reads awkwardly**, for example into the plural, but not when the person you describe uses they.

When you do not know an author's pronouns, APA's page says to reword or use they, as this guide does. MLA and Chicago treat the specific use alike; for the generic use, see the table.

## Which style does your assignment want?

The one your brief or course handbook names, in the edition it names: an APA 6 brief and an APA 7 brief give different answers on generic they. In order:

1. **Find the style and edition.** Paste the instructions into EdCitation's free [Check your paper](https://edcitation.com/check), which lists the citation style beside the sentence it came from. [Reading a brief and its rubric](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-read-an-assignment-brief-and-rubric) goes further.
2. **Read that style's own page** on singular they, linked under References.
3. **Write your sentences yourself.** No EdCitation tool checks or changes a pronoun.
4. **Make each reference** in [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa), from the publisher's record.
5. **Put the finished list** through [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references).

We tried step 1 with a brief we wrote. From "Format the paper and references in APA Style, 7th edition." Check your paper returned the citation style as "APA 7". Our line "Use bias-free language: use singular they for a person whose gender is unknown." came back under "What it asks you to do, which no rule can test": an instruction for the writer, not for software.

## Where does EdCitation fit?

EdCitation finds, cites and verifies the sources for a paper on language change, and writes none of the paper. Its four free tools need no account.

[Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) covers about 300 million published works, searched by subject or by the claim one sentence has to carry, and narrows them by kind of source, year and open access: a place to start on pronouns or [the history of English](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/a-short-history-of-english).

For the list itself, Cite a source is the best tool: each entry is built from the record the publisher deposited, never composed, and a chatbot generating text cannot guarantee that. Given the DOI of Bodine's 1975 article, it returned this APA 7 entry from Crossref's record, with no retraction notice:

> Bodine, A. (1975). Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar: Singular ‘they,’ sex-indefinite ‘he,’ and ‘he or she.’ *Language in Society*, *4*(2), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500004607

### Where to look twice

The title quotes three words, and the commas and full stop after them sit inside the quotation marks, as American usage places them: Chicago puts commas and periods before a closing quotation mark (Harper, 2020), and the MLA and Chicago entries read "Singular ‘They,’ Sex-Indefinite ‘He,’ and ‘He or She.’" In Harvard, which follows Cite Them Right's British practice, they stay outside: "singular “they”, sex-indefinite “he”". Title case in the MLA and Chicago entries comes from those styles; APA and Harvard keep sentence case.

[Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) marked Bodine's article verified: "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." It marked APA's 2019 blog post "Could not check", never "not found", because the page "gave no title to compare"; APA's site had turned away our automated requests as well. Murray's 1795 grammar came back "Check this", since the library catalogue records no 1795 edition; the scanned York title page, dated 1795, settles it. Pro, at $8 a month ([pricing](https://edcitation.com/pricing)), adds checks of a whole file such as Mechanics QA. None of these tools touches a pronoun; every sentence stays the writer's own.

## Quick questions

### Is singular they grammatically correct?

The OED and Merriam-Webster record it from the 1300s, and APA 7, MLA and Chicago 18 accept it in formal writing, though eighteenth-century grammars called it an error. Follow the style your assignment names.

### When did APA start using singular they?

For a generic person, with the seventh edition of the *Publication Manual* in 2019. For people who use they, its blog advised it by November 2015.

### Does the Chicago Manual of Style allow singular they in formal writing?

Yes, since the 18th edition of 2024. The 17th edition of 2017 accepted they for a specific person but advised avoiding the generic use in formal prose.

### Is themself a word?

Yes. Merriam-Webster notes its growing use, Chicago allowed it from 2017, and APA accepts it beside the more common themselves.

### How do I find out which style my assignment uses?

Read the brief, or paste it into EdCitation's free [Check your paper](https://edcitation.com/check), which names the style and edition beside the sentence that set it.

## References

- An Act for shortening the Language used in Acts of Parliament, 13 & 14 Vict. c. 21 (1850). [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/13-14/21/enacted](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/13-14/21/enacted)
- American Psychological Association. (2025, December). *Singular "they"*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they)
- Baron, D. (2018, September 4). *A brief history of singular "they"*. Oxford English Dictionary. [https://www.oed.com/discover/a-brief-history-of-singular-they](https://www.oed.com/discover/a-brief-history-of-singular-they)
- Bodine, A. (1975). Androcentrism in prescriptive grammar: Singular "they", sex-indefinite "he", and "he or she". *Language in Society*, *4*(2), 129–146. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500004607](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500004607)
- Chaucer, G. (1900). *The complete works of Geoffrey Chaucer: Vol. 4. The Canterbury tales: Text* (W. W. Skeat, Ed.; 2nd ed.). Clarendon Press. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22120](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22120)
- The Chicago Manual of Style. (n.d.). *Pronouns* [Chicago Style Q&A]. [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pronouns/faq0031.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pronouns/faq0031.html)
- CMOS Shop Talk. (2017, April 3). *Chicago style for the singular they*. [https://cmosshoptalk.com/2017/04/03/chicago-style-for-the-singular-they/](https://cmosshoptalk.com/2017/04/03/chicago-style-for-the-singular-they/)
- CMOS Shop Talk. (2024, April 16). *Announcing The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition*. [https://cmosshoptalk.com/2024/04/16/announcing-the-chicago-manual-of-style-18th-edition/](https://cmosshoptalk.com/2024/04/16/announcing-the-chicago-manual-of-style-18th-edition/)
- Easton, L. (2017, March 24). *Making a case for a singular "they"*. AP Definitive Source. Archived April 6, 2017, at [https://web.archive.org/web/20170406030421/https://blog.ap.org/products-and-services/making-a-case-for-a-singular-they](https://web.archive.org/web/20170406030421/https://blog.ap.org/products-and-services/making-a-case-for-a-singular-they)
- Fisher, A. (1754). *A new grammar, with exercises of bad English: Or, an easy guide to speaking and writing the English language properly and correctly* (4th ed.). I. Thompson and Comp. [https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-new-grammar-with-exer_fisher-a-anne_1754](https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-new-grammar-with-exer_fisher-a-anne_1754)
- Harper, R. (2020, October 20). *Commas and periods with quotation marks*. CMOS Shop Talk. [https://cmosshoptalk.com/2020/10/20/commas-and-periods-with-quotation-marks/](https://cmosshoptalk.com/2020/10/20/commas-and-periods-with-quotation-marks/)
- Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website. (n.d.). *6.2 The Pardoner's prologue, introduction, and tale*. [https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/pardoners-prologue-introduction-and-tale](https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/pardoners-prologue-introduction-and-tale)
- Lee, C. (2015, November 16). *The use of singular "they" in APA Style*. APA Style Blog. Archived July 7, 2025, at [https://web.archive.org/web/20250707190322/https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/11/the-use-of-singular-they-in-apa-style.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20250707190322/https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2015/11/the-use-of-singular-they-in-apa-style.html)
- Lee, C. (2019, October 31). *Welcome, singular "they"*. APA Style Blog. [https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they](https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they)
- Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). They. In *Merriam-Webster.com dictionary*. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they)
- Merriam-Webster. (2016, June 24). *Singular "they"*. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/singular-nonbinary-they](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/singular-nonbinary-they)
- Merriam-Webster. (2019a, December 9). *Merriam-Webster's words of the year 2019*. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year-2019-they](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/word-of-the-year-2019-they)
- Merriam-Webster. (2019b, September 17). *We added new words to the dictionary in September 2019*. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/new-words-in-the-dictionary-september-2019](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/new-words-in-the-dictionary-september-2019)
- Modern Language Association. (2020, March 4). *How do I use singular they?* MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/using-singular-they/](https://style.mla.org/using-singular-they/)
- Murray, L. (1795). *English grammar, adapted to the different classes of learners*. Wilson, Spence, and Mawman. [https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_english-grammar-adapted_murray-lindley_1795](https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_english-grammar-adapted_murray-lindley_1795)
- Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). They, pron., adj., adv., n. In *Oxford English Dictionary*. Oxford University Press. [https://www.oed.com/dictionary/they_pron](https://www.oed.com/dictionary/they_pron)
- Oxford English Dictionary. (2019). *New words list October 2019*. Archived December 13, 2019, at [https://web.archive.org/web/20191213234339/https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-october-2019/](https://web.archive.org/web/20191213234339/https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-october-2019/)