Talk:theirself

Is themself really more popular than theirself?

I naturally found myself using theirself in combination with they when referring to a hypothetical person of unknown sex.

"If a student wishes to write down notes, they should use pen and paper instead of any electronic device. The institution will not provide any resources, the student must bring these theirself."

Using "themself" doesn't feel natural here since "them" is a plural form, while "self" is a singular form. Since they can also be used to mean plurality, instead of genderlessness, it confuses the reader, and is possibly an indication of a confused author. Another possible explanation is that plural and singular forms are mixed to avoid too big a deviation from the common usage of plural or unknown grammatical number. There's a lot of examples of usage in the entry for [themself], I'll be on the lookout for instances of theirself instead of themself.--TZubiri (talk) 19:59, 23 July 2020 (UTC)