They
English
[edit]Pronoun
[edit]They
- Honorific alternative letter-case form of of they, sometimes used when referring to gods or other important figures who are understood from context.
- 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], “Of the Making of the Worlds”, in The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, pages 4–5:
- Then raising Their hands, each god according to his sign, They made the worlds and the suns, and put a light in the houses of the sky.
- 1975, W[illiam] J[ames] M[illar] Mackenzie, “The Conceptual Framework and the Cash Basis”, in Explorations in Government: Collected Papers: 1951–1968, New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: Halsted Press, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, section V (Constitutional Theory, Political Theory), pages 305–306:
- The question arises in a practical way in two possible situations: either ‘here is Mr. A: he wants to do some research and has a grant of so much for X years’: or ‘here is a problem: They (capital T, please) want us to do research about it and are prepared to pay £X over a period of X years’. Of course these problems are not for the entrepreneur separate: if he can promote an association between Mr. A and Them he has to that extent stabilised and regularised his business.
- 1987, Howard F. Stein, “Farmer and Cowboy: The Duality of the Midwestern Male Ethos—a Study in Ethnicity, Regionalism, and National Identity”, in Howard F. Stein, Maurice Apprey, From Metaphor to Meaning: Papers in Psychoanalytic Anthropology (Series in Ethnicity, Medicine, and Psychoanalysis; 2), Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, →ISBN, page 211:
- God is used as the mouthpiece of the parent. You come to feel that you can never be good enough or perfect enough in their eyes or in God’s. Even when you start to think for yourself, you have the dim fear that They (capital T) are right.
- 1991 March 18, Kingsley Amis, “To Robert Conquest”, in Zachary Leader, editor, The Letters of Kingsley Amis, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, published 2000, →ISBN, pages 1102–1103:
- They (capital T) are saying that while Saddam was not at all a good idea it was very bad that we were in the Gulf at all – latest was a bearded Canuck who did me for their TV this morning.
- 1995 October, Joseph R. Garber, “Some Fine Joke”, in Vertical Run, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 133:
- Succinctly stated, your story is that nameless men from a faceless organization want to kill you for reasons which you cannot fathom. You’ve done nothing. You are an innocent and blameless man. But They—capital ‘T’ They—want you dead.