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When you are referring to a hypothetical individual whose sex is not certain, which personal pronouns should be used to refer to that person? Several options are available. Traditionally, the neutral personal pronoun in English has been the same as the masculine one, but many feminists have objected to this, and using it means risking political disapproval. It can also, on occasion, produce phrases which look a bit silly. Most modern business people prefer to avoid it.

The most popular neutral way to use third person singular pronouns in formal modern English is to write them as ‘he/she’, ‘him/her’ etc. This method is unlikely to attract disapproval, but it can look a bit awkward, and it can interrupt the flow of speech. You might choose to write out in full ‘he or she’, ‘him or her’ etc. each time; this is slightly less popular, as, when it’s used a lot, it can make documents quite a bit longer. It does have the advantage of sounding more like natural speech.

It’s probable that you have often heard people use the third person plural pronoun (’them’, ‘they’, ‘their’) as an alternative to ‘he/she’. This is considered by many people to be slang usage, and some people may be distinctly unimpressed upon encountering it in your business communications. However, there are business circles - as, indeed, there are literary circles - where it is quite acceptable. It has a proud literary heritage, having been prominently advocated by the novelist Jane Austen, and it has been quite widely used in twentieth century books.

Various other neutral pronouns have been advanced over the years. It is possible to use ‘one’ in this instance, but, since it differs from the more common usage of that word (see lesson one), this can cause confusion. An experimental new word, ‘ne’ (declined as ‘ne’, ‘nim’, ‘nis’) was introduced in the middle of the last century, but failed to catch on. New neutral pronouns have had more success on the internet, where many readers are familiar with ‘zie’/'zir’ and ‘xie/xir’, as with ’sie’/'hir’/'hirs’. If you conduct a lot of business via the internet, you may choose to investigate the use of these forms within your particular market, to see if they might be useful to you there. However, they are inappropriate in formal English and should not be used in your general business communications.

Whichever option you use, it is important to be consistent. Certainly, you should try to avoid changing pronouns within a single document. In some instances, it may be advisable to select the pronoun option which is most appropriate for a particular set of readers.

© Jennie Kermode

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