'They' named as Merriam-Webster’s word of the year
It is increasingly common in published, edited text, as well as in Twitter, Facebook and conference nametags as a person’s pronouns and in daily personal interactions between English speakers
The nonbinary pronoun "they" has chosen by Merriam-Webster as the 2019 word of the year.
The word "they" is a gender neutral pronoun used in the place of "he or she".
It is increasingly common in published, edited text, as well as in Twitter, Facebook and conference nametags as a person's pronouns and in daily personal interactions between English speakers.
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Merriam-Webster declared it's word of the year based on a 313% increase in look-ups on the company's search site, Merriam-Webster.com this year compared to 2018.
"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," Merriam-Webster wrote on their website.
On September this year, Merriam-Webster added "they" and "themself" to the dictionary.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA) revealed in April during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the Equality Act that her child is gender-nonconforming and uses "they".
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.
