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I want to reffer to a person whose gender I don't know.

Should I say a person himself/herself or a person itself?

Two examples below:

Reflexive: If someone wants to kill somebody else, then do it him/herself.

Intensive: I need to run a mask detection, but I just need to use someone's head or face, not the person himself/herself.

Maf
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  • Reflexive: If someone wants to kill, then do it him/herself.

    Intensive: I need to run a mask detection, but I just need to use someone's head, not the person himself/herselvf

     – Maf Dec 07 '20 at 09:59
  • It is not uncommon to see good writers sometimes resort to themselves in such cases to dodge the discomfiting himself/herself. But you need to fix the sentence a bit: If someone wants to kill [somebody else], they should do it themselves. – user405662 Dec 07 '20 at 10:14
  • Thank you. Let me edit my sentence.

    Is that normal to collocate someone with themselves. Should we also use someone for plural?

     – Maf Dec 07 '20 at 10:18
  • That's what I meant when I said it's not uncommon to see good writers.... It isn't strictly grammatical but himself/herself could sound awkward at times. – user405662 Dec 07 '20 at 10:21
  • Got it. That's great to learn these kind of things. – Maf Dec 07 '20 at 10:24
  • My fix is usually to set the subject in plural, to set up the plural pronoun.

    "If people want to kill others, they should do it themselves."

    "I need to run mask detections, but I just need to use people's heads or faces, not the people themselves."

     – Yosef Baskin Dec 07 '20 at 19:31
  • That's great. Thanks! – Maf Dec 08 '20 at 06:09
  • Themself works just fine, and is just as singular as they or them or their. And just as singular as you and your, though not as recent a change. – John Lawler Feb 19 '23 at 19:11

2 Answers2

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Is it not correct that in standard English the masculine pronoun himself can be used when the sex of the subject is indefinite or gender-neutral?

"Should we really object to what someone calls himself?"

MikeL
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It's "themselves" unless you want to say "himself or herself" every time.

A side note: Although this is how I reference and understand referenced a person of unknown gender, there have been disputes about the usage of gender-neutral pronouns, especially in recent years. However, you would be understood using "themselves":

Use themselves as the reflexive/intensive pronoun to refer to an indefinite gender-neutral noun or pronoun that is the subject of the sentence and avoid themself.

I would rather state the other voice regarding this, too:

Although some current dictionaries, for example, The New Oxford Dictionary of English, state that themself has re-emerged in recent years when used to refer to a singular gender-neutral noun or pronoun ("themselves" remains the normal third person plural reflexive form), they label it as "rare" or "disputed" or "not widely accepted in standard English".

The references are from Department of Justice of Canada

niamulbengali
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