Merriam-Webster officially announced the word ‘they’ as its 2019 Word of the Year. Previously, singular ‘they’ was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in September 2019 as a pronoun to be used to refer to a person whose gender identity is nonbinary.
The word was a clear forerunner, as Merriam-Webster stated that searches for ‘they’ increased by 313% in 2019 compared to 2018. This is unsurprising, as English has been notorious for lacking a gender-neutral singular pronoun. Thus, ‘they’ has been used in this context for hundreds of years.
The American Dialect Society also chose singular ‘they’ as their word of the year in 2015, signifying a vote of approval for its usage as a pronoun for nonbinary individuals. [Read more…] about Merriam Webster’s Word of the Year 2019: Nonbinary Pronoun ‘They’