They

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This article is about the English personal pronoun. For other uses, see They (disambiguation).

Look up they, them, their, theirs in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

They (IPA: /ðeɪ/) is a third-person, personal pronoun (subject case) in Modern English.

Personal pronouns in standard Modern English
		Singular			Plural
		Subject	Object	Reflexive	Subject	Object	Reflexive
First		I	me	myself	we	us	ourselves
Second		you	you	yourself	you	you	yourselves
Third	Masculine	he	him	himself	they	them	themselves
	Feminine	she	her	herself
	Neuter	it	it	itself

1 Usage
2 Etymology
3 They "The People"
4 See also

[edit] Usage

The "singular" they is the use of this pronoun, where they is used as a gender-neutral singular rather than plural pronoun. The correctness of this usage is disputed.

[edit] Etymology

Personal pronouns in Middle English
		Singular			Plural
		Subject	Object	Possessive	Subject	Object	Possessive
First		I	me	mi(n)	we	us	ure
Second		thou	thee	thy	ye	you	your
Third	Impersonal	hit	it/him	his	he they	hem them	hir their
	Masculine	he	him	his
	Feminine	sche	hire	hir

[edit] They "The People"

Taken from "You know what "they" say..."

"They" refers to the masses of those who are among the pop culture. "They" quote sayings of individuals who could put complex events in to understandable context; believing that what "they" have just quoted would justify an event or action which had just occurred.
"They" may also refer to the government or society at large, such as when a paranoid conspiracy theorist proclaims "They're out to get me, man" or "They're watching me right now."

The logical position against this usage is based on the principle of methodological individualism - the obvious fact about the reality of humans that various actions such as "thinking", "saying", "feeling", "knowing", "believing" or any other physiological functions can only be done by individual humans.