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Is using "their" in a phrase "Everyone has their reasons for doing something" informal? This reason I'm asking this is because a test book I'm using claims that using their in the situation above is informal, and that "his or her" is the more formal alternative. I find this very strange however, and would like someone to verify this claim. So is using "their" in the situation above considered informal?

Laurel
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Ethan Chan
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    It depends what you mean by "formal". Would you care to give us a definition? – WS2 Sep 29 '18 at 14:40
  • @WS2 I should have been more specific. I meant formal as in grammatically correct. – Ethan Chan Sep 29 '18 at 14:41
  • 'Everyone' is singular, but 'their' (and 'they') are plural, although that may be changing. – AmI Sep 29 '18 at 18:34
  • Some good answers here – S Conroy Sep 29 '18 at 20:44
  • It would be perfectly grammatical either way. – WS2 Sep 30 '18 at 06:09
  • The use of they/their in place of him/his or her/hers (or some more awkward gender-neutral conjunction) is in a state of flux. It's not so much a question of formality as it is one of "correctness" -- being gender-aware is in many ways more formal. – Hot Licks Nov 30 '18 at 03:30
  • Some style guides have different opinions on singular "they" and alternatives like "he/she". If writing for a publication or institution, see if they have rules. – Stuart F Sep 24 '22 at 12:51

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Gradually, singular they is becoming more and more accepted in formal English.

According to Welcome, singular “they” on the APA blog:

APA endorses the use of “they” as a singular third-person pronoun in the seventh edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. This means it is officially good practice in scholarly writing to use the singular “they.”

However, an earlier APA blog post shows just how recent this change was:

The singular they is also commonly used to refer to a person whose gender is irrelevant or unknown—for example, imagine the sentence "The participant indicated their preferences." However, most formal writing and style guides, including the APA Publication Manual, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the AP Stylebook, do not currently support this usage, deeming it too informal and/or ungrammatical.

If you're using a specific style guide you should check it to make sure. The old blog post goes on to mention the strategy of using "his or her" as one alternative (of several) to replace "their", but it says to "avoid overusing this strategy, as it can become cumbersome upon many repetitions".

Laurel
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