The Pronoun ‘They’ is ‘ The Word of the Decade’
In the survey, it has been found that the word, “They” is used in English by a large number of non-binary individuals, people who cannot identify themselves as either male or female.
The US language experts have voted neutral pronoun ‘they’ as the ‘word of the decade’. Other contenders in the decade category, are #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, meme, climate, emoji, the opioid crisis and woke.
At the start of a new decade, American Dialect Society has declared its ‘word of the year’ honour in order to enhance increasingly common practice of introducing words in correspondence or socially by the set of pronouns one prefers to be called by or declaring in an email, for example, “pronouns: she/her”.
In the survey, it has been found that the word, “They” is used in English by a large number of non-binary individuals, people who cannot identify themselves as either male or female. They also prefer the plural neutral pronoun to bypass the traditionally male ‘he’ or female ‘she’.
The award was decided in New Orleans recently, by about 350 members of the society at its annual meeting of academics, graduate students and word lovers, who voted by a show of hands.
Ben Zimmer, who heads the American Dialect Society, which also studies the evolution of language said, “When a fundamental part of language like pronouns becomes a vital indicator of trends in society, linguists prick up their ears”.
He also said that the selection of ‘they’ was an indication of “how the personal expression of gender identity has become an increasing part of our shared discourse. People want to choose something that stands the test of time and sums up the decade as a whole.”
Social media has also contributed to the way words or phrases have become popular these days, leading to some recent multi-word champions for word of the year, which also include, ‘tender-age shelter’ (a detention facility for young, undocumented migrant children separated from their parents) in the year 2018 and “fake news” in the year 2017.
The American Dialect Society had previously named ‘they’ as ‘word of the year’ in the year 2015. The Society also has linguists, lexicographers, grammarians, etymologists, historians, writers, editors, researchers, students and scholars as its members.
The American Dialect Society was founded in the year 1889 and is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America. The society started this tradition of selecting ‘word of the year’ in the year 1991 and since then has picked only two other winners of the word of the decade. Top choices among the words were “web” for the 1990s and “Google” as a verb for the 2000s.
