4 ms·
"themself" follows the same pattern as "himself", "herself", "ourself", etc. As a commenter pointed out, "them" is frequently used as a singular object pronoun:
by 70forty 13y ago
"themself" follows the same pattern as "himself", "herself", "ourself", etc. As a commenter pointed out, "them" is frequently used as a singular object pronoun:
If a student has an inappropriate question, whatever you do, do not berate them.
corpus.byu.edu/coca/ returns 95,000 hits for "themselves" vs only 43 for "theirselves".
- gr3yh47 13y agoThis is, however, formally incorrect. "If a student has an inappropriate question, whatever you do, do not berate him." would be formally correct edit: and your corpus search correctly shows that the plural 'themselves' is correct over 'theirselves' while having nothing to do with the discussion at hand about the singular
- Symmetry 13y agoWhat are you consulting to find that the correct replacement for 'them' in formal writing is 'him' here? There isn't any College of the English Language to make authoritative prescriptive statements, and the Chicago Manual of Style at least has been against the use of 'him' here for several editions.
- gr3yh47 13y agoI am not claiming that 'him' is a replacement for 'them' 'them' is plural and flatly incorrect when used as a singular pronoun. edit: Again, 'them' is formally incorrect but informally acceptable in the singular usage.
- 70forty 13y ago'them' is plural and flatly incorrect when used as a singular pronoun. Why? How do you know this?