EN: a person + themselves / themself ? - pronoun

[Whyles]

Bonjour , je n'arrive pas à trouver sur internet quelle phrase est correcte s'il y en a une :
"A person who does not love themselves is not going to love others "
"A person who does not love themself is not going to love others "

Merci de votre réponse

 

[snarkhunter]

Bonjour, et bienvenue sur ce forum,

Pour moi, dans ce cas (singulier), ce serait "who does not love oneself".
Et "themself" est de toute façon erroné. Il n'existe que "themselves", et ce n'est pas applicable ici.

 

[Maître Capello]

Aucune des deux phrases ne me semble vraiment naturelle. Le pluriel partout me semble plus approprié :

People who do not love themselves…​

Et si vous voulez absolument utiliser le singulier, je dirais :

A person who does not love him- or herself…​

Voir aussi :
EN: Everyone introduces themselves/himself
EN: themselves / themself

 

[Bezoard]

La chose est sujette à discussion, et souvent aussi choquante pour les francophones que pour certains anglophones, mais il est certain qu'on trouve aujourd'hui souvent "a person" employé avec " themselves" :
If a person owns themselves, they own their actions, including those that create or improve resources, therefore they own their own labour and the fruits thereof.
What behaviors indicate that a person loves themselves?
What is another word for every person for themselves?
How can a person express themselves better?
Can a bisexual person call themselves gay?

 

[jucami]

Pour moi, dans ce cas (singulier), ce serait "who does not love oneself".

Oneself ne correspond pas ici. On peut l'employer avec le sujet one (one who does not love oneself) ou avec un sujet impersonnel (it is important to love oneself), mais le sujet a person ne peut pas prendre oneself.

Personnellement à l'oral j'utiliserais spontanément themselves, et à l'écrit je...reformulerais carrément la phrase (comme suggéré par Maître Capello) pour éviter la lourdeur de him- or herself.

 

[Whyles]

Merci de vos réponses.

 

[Keith Bradford]

...Pour moi, dans ce cas (singulier), ce serait "who does not love oneself".
Et "themself" est de toute façon erroné. Il n'existe que "themselves", et ce n'est pas applicable ici.

Dommage, mais "pour moi" n'a rien à faire. Themself est le mot à utiliser. Dans ce cas précis "them" n'a rien de pluriel : c'est le pronom singulier à genre indéfini qui signifie (depuis 5 siècles) "ou bien he ou bien she mais je ne sais pas lequel".

Pourquoi ne le sais-je pas ? Soit parce qu'il s'agit d'une spéculation concernant l'avenir, soit pour des raisons sexuelles.

Donc:

• "If anyone calls while I'm out, tell them to make themself at home in the waiting room" ou bien
• "Can a bisexual person call themself gay?" ou encore
• "A person who does not love themself is not going to love others".

 

[Maître Capello]

Themself existe certes depuis plusieurs siècles, mais son usage reste très restreint et largement minoritaire comme on peut le voir sur ce Ngram. En outre, l'usage d'aujourd'hui n'est pas celui d'autrefois, les problèmes d'identité de genre n'étant devenus courants que ces dernières années.

Ce terme est de plus taxé soit de familier soit de non standard par la plupart des dictionnaires. Il convient donc de l'employer avec prudence, d'autant plus qu'un nombre non négligeable d'anglophones natifs ne l'acceptent pas.

M-W

nonstandard
: themselves → now used chiefly in place of "himself or herself" as a gender-neutral reflexive form of they when the reference is to a single person (as in "each person can decide for themself")

OED

pronoun - not standard
used when the subject of the verb is "they" used as a singular pronoun, or a single person who could be any gender, and the object is the same person:
• It's all about letting someone be themself.
• Our publication uses singular "they" and "them" when discussing a nonbinary, agender or gender-fluid person who uses those pronouns for themself.
used for emphasis when the subject is "they" used as a singular pronoun, or a single person who could be any gender:
• Each parent/child relationship is different and the only expert on that specific child is the parent themself.

TFD

1. Informal Himself or herself. Used as a gender-neutral reflexive pronoun: "Relationships are hard, but all the work is worth it, unless the person you're with has totally let themself go" (John Metz).
2. Nonstandard Themselves: "I was telling Bubber how he and my uncles owns the whole place themself" (Carson McCullers).

 

[Keith Bradford]

"Informal" I'll accept, though it's very common in the better newspapers and I doubt it will be seen as informal for long. The "nonstandard" version in TFD is simply uneducated, like the incorrect verb-ending, and I wouldn't begin to quote it in support of the correct usage.

The Ngram proves nothing because in most cases we don't need to use themself; we know full well what the required gender is. If you know you're talking about a man or boy, you say himself; about a girl or woman you use herself. And plurals are plurals: themselves.

The two outstanding cases where themself is in my view obligatory are:

1. You don't know the gender because the situation is speculative. Either the case has not yet arisen (If someone comes...) or it is commonplace for males and females (A person who does not love themself...) but for some reason you don't want to put it into the plural.
2. You don't know the gender because the person is non-binary. This is a very recent phenomenon (I know a performance artist and LGBTQ activist who calls themself Travis Alabanza) and it hasn't yet affected the statistical frequency to any great extent. Whether you accept the usage or not, it doesn't invalidate case 1.

 

[Maître Capello]

The Ngram proves nothing because in most cases we don't need to use themself; we know full well what the required gender is. If you know you're talking about a man or boy, you say himself; about a girl or woman you use herself.

Then just check themself, himself and herself, and him- and herself (link). The first is still less frequent than the other versions.

but for some reason you don't want to put it into the plural

Why would you avoid the plural, really? I mean, if putting it to into the plural makes it a natural sentence, it is probably better than any of the other solutions.

You don't know the gender because the person is non-binary.

Agreed, but as you mentioned this is a very recent usage and it is quite different from case 1.

 

[robertito]

• "If anyone calls while I'm out, tell them to make themself at home in the waiting room" ou bien
• "Can a bisexual person call themself gay?" ou encore
• "A person who does not love themself is not going to love others".

For what it's worth, at least in my circles, in New Zealand we would use "themselves" in these examples.

But Keith makes an interesting point about non-binary people - perhaps we should take our lead from them.

 

[Arimeyao]

Very interesting to see all of this as the question and subject did not seem complicated to me. I wont speak to the grammar, but rather the usage, at least here in the US.

I would reject themselves because, to me, this is plural while the subject is singular. Themself, as Keith stated above, is commonly used as an objective singular pronoun of indefinite gender, matching the subject in this case.

(Similarly, "they" is often used as a subjective singular pronoun of indefinite gender. One of the kids ran into the street. They shouldn't have. This seems wrong and may be grammatically incorrect. But the only choices for singular indefinite subjects I can think of are it and one, and "one" is rarely used in this way in conversation by most americans, while "it" is not used for people. So people use "they". All my personal observations.)

So the second sentence in the original post - themself - would be fine. I personally might say him- or herself, but I don't think the average american would bother with the added complexity.

 

[Arimeyao]

Après reflection, je voudrais ajouter que, parce que je n'aimerais pas participer dans cette confusion, si c'était moi j'écrirais/dirais him- or herself. Bien que la plupart ici ne le dirait pas, tous le comprendraient.