he or she
Binary pronoun choice
He or she is a pronoun phrase used to refer to a person of unspecified gender: Each student should bring his or her own laptop.
It emerged as an alternative to generic "he" when that usage came to seem sexist.
The construction is grammatically correct but often clunky, leading many writers to prefer singular "they" or to restructure sentences entirely.
- gender-neutralWithout sex distinction
- personHuman individual
- pronounNoun's grammatical replacement
- third personGrammatical category for others
- themselfSingular reflexive third-person
human · individual · singular · everybody · subject · anyone · each · legal language · legal writing · either · pick one · generic · plural · woman · he · character · participant · identity