3rd Person

Third Person: It's All About Them

The third person complicates things. First and second person are relatively easy to understand and use, but the third person has different forms based on the number of persons, and its gender (or lack of gender).

Generally, the third person is used to speak about someone, or something else; him, her, it, they. It is very commonly used, and you probably don't even think about it. Most newspaper articles are written in the third person, because they are describing events from afar, and are reporting news to everyone, rather than speaking directly to you, the reader. Some magazine articles will use the second person, giving a more informal feel.

3rd Person Pronouns

Pronoun	Person
he	third-person singular, masculine
she	third-person singular, feminine
it	third-person singular, neuter/inanimate *
they	third-person singular, gender-neutral
they	third-person plural
them	third-person plural **

* "it" used as third-person singular pronoun is never used for people. It would be highly offensive to refer to another human as "it". "It" in this context is for inanimate objects, concepts, and occasionally animals - although I still feel weird about referring to pets as "it" - I'd rather use a gendered or gender-neutral pronoun.

** "them" used in the third person is often informal / colloquial, but not always.

Works Cited Preen, Katy. “Make It Personal: Writing in 1st, 2nd & 3rd Person formats.” Owlcation, Owlcation, 11 May 2017, owlcation.com/humanities/Make-It-Personal- writing-in-1st-2nd-3rd-person-formats.

Visit Grammar Girl for full information about Third Person Voice usage

Third Person

The third person is the most common point of view used in fiction writing and is the traditional form for academic writing. Authors of novels and composers of papers use “he,” “she,” or “it” when referring to a person, place, thing, or idea. The following quotations include the third-person singular subjective cases...

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