Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words

by John McWhorter

With his trademark humor and flair, the bestselling linguist and renowned professor busts the myths and shares the history of the most controversial language topic of our pronounsThe nature of language is to shift and evolve—but every so often, a new usage creates a whole lot of consternation. These days, pronouns are throwing curve balls, and it matters, because pronoun habits die hard. If you need a refresher from eighth grade pronouns are short, used endlessly, and serve to point and direct, to orient us as to what is meant about who. Him, not her. Me, not you. Pronouns get a heavy workout, and as such, they become part of our hardwiring. To mess with our pronouns is to mess with us.    But many of today’s hot button controversies are nonsense. The singular “they” has been with us since the 1400s and appears in Shakespeare. In fact, many of the supposedly iron-clad rules of grammar are up for debate (Billy and me went to the store is perfectly logical!), and with tasty trivia, unexpected twists, and the weird quirks of early and contemporary English, McWhorter guides readers on a journey of how our whole collection of these little words emerged and has changed over time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, History, Linguistics, Audiobook, Writing, Politics

235 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2025

About the author

John Hamilton McWhorter (Professor McWhorter uses neither his title nor his middle initial as an author) is an American academic and linguist who is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he teaches linguistics, American studies, philosophy, and music history. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His research specializes on how creole languages form, and how language grammars change as the result of sociohistorical phenomena.

A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back when McWhorter started this book, the subject must have sounded a bit abstruse, but in a weird coincidence with reactionary politics, pronouns now feel hotter than climate change. After Trump’s executive order “Restoring Biological Truth,” government employees were ordered to scrub pronouns from their email signatures. Suddenly, “they” could get you fired.

“To mess with our pronouns,” McWhorter writes, “is to mess with our sense of the order of things, what’s up and what’s down — life itself.” We’re naturally possessive about our pronouns. But he acknowledges early on, “My positions on these matters do not stem from any ‘conservatism’ with which I am sometimes associated.” Indeed, he’s a descriptive linguist, a scholar interested in observing the evolution of language, not railing against its perceived misuses.

That open-mindedness — even delight — is clear throughout his survey of the little words we use to refer to ourselves and others. In his fascinating first chapter, McWhorter leads us through the circuitous grammatical history of the first person as subject and object. “I and me are what one might call a hot mess,” he writes. “It’s always all about them.” The trouble started, he explains, with the increase in literacy and an attendant rise of uninformed snobbery. “Our sense of ‘good English’ was shaped in the 1700s by people who knew essentially nothing of the languages” beyond Europe, which meant we ended up with nonsensical grammar rules that are “a tad flat-earther!”

“To wit, the idea of Billy and me went to the store as an error is, itself, a misperception, foisted upon endless generations of English speakers.”

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[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Columbia University linguistics professor John McWorther has sometimes (and indeed far far too often) been considered a Social Conservative and thus supposedly also in general agreement with Donald Trump and his style of horridly reactionary and all encompassingly ignorant political philosophy (and frankly, calling Trump reactionary is being hugely kind at best). However, McWhorter most certainly and definitely does NOT consider himself as being a Conservative and has indeed pretty much ALWAYS rejected said label, most recently on the Real Time with Bill Maher show (where John McWorther talked about and introduced his April 2025 Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words and which I immediately purchased and have read through with total and utter reading delight). For unlike Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Pierre Poilievre, Danielle Smith et al (all of whom actually know pretty much NOTHING AT ALL about linguistics and language history), McWhorter with Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words considers the pronouns we use in the English language as both historical and also as ever-changing, as constantly evolving (and therefore never ever as stagnant, never as cast in proverbial stone so to speak) and which indeed totally resists and also rejects staunch conservatism (both linguistically and equally so otherwise as well).

Therefore with Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words tracing, explaining and analysing the etymology of the English pronouns I, you, we, he, she, it and they, John McWhorter shows for example how the word eg (from the ancient Proto-Indo-European progenitor of most European languages) evolved into ego in Latin, I in English, ik in Dutch, yo in Spanish, ich in German, je in French etc., that English once had several second-person pronouns (thou, thee, ye, you) to distinguish singular/plural and subject/object uses and with McWhorter also recounting in Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words how the imposition of Latin as well as Anglo Saxon on Celtic speaking peoples and also the arrival of Scandinavian and thus Northern Germanic speaking invaders in Britain in the centuries prior to the 1066 AD Norman invasion kickstarted a gradual language simplification process during which large numbers of individuals learning Anglo Saxon (English) as a second language were struggling to keep up with such specific distinctions and finally just settled on only using you. And yes and wonderfully so, John McWhorter in Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words also very staunchly (and in a totally academically and linguistically sound way) defends the use of the pronoun they to refer to non-binary individuals, pointing out that Mediaeval, that Middle English authors like Geoffrey Chaucer also used they as a singular pronoun, and arguing that it is equally absolutely futile to resist language’s ever-evolving mutations and evolution.

Five stars for Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words, with John McWorther making the etymologies he provides both fascinating and that I really do massively appreciate McWorther using a breezy and delightfully accessible style as well some light humour, so that Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words never becomes too textbook-like or too academic in scope and is as such suitable for interested readers from about the age of fourteen or so onwards (and that indeed, readers also and totally will not at all need advanced post-secondary knowledge of land experience with linguistics in order read and also easily understand what John McWorther has penned in Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words, and that for me, Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words is absolutely perfect and also just totally lovely, totally wonderful and a delightfully diverting linguistic and language history based reading treat).

[Mark Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge McWhorter fan, and this is classic McWhorter in every way—though I'm just not persuaded that my resistance to they/them is related to fuddy-duddyness or middle age. I draw the line finely: the historic singular "they" which McWhorter expertly defends and elaborates is a good and needed thing—and a very different thing from the singular "they" that is being thrust upon us all by gender ideology. McWhorter helps distinguish the two, I'd say, by his argument, because his argument is not at all that *we've already been doing the singular they in English so what's the big deal with they/them*; his argument is that pronouns are resistant to change because they're so basic to language and that if they/them want us to use new pronouns, the historic singular they is the most likely candidate to succeed.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes!!!! John McWhorter does John McWhorter!!! That's what we want, baby! No more flirting with the dark side! Or, he probably will. You are where your paychecks come from, John. Watch yourself. America does not currently appreciate nuance, and you are far too nuanced to get around without wearing a summary of your actual opinions on a hat. Go buy that hat. Embroider your politics onto a dashing fedora, as would befit a man of your tastes. John McWhorter is so cool. And he's back to referencing classic Looney Tunes and discussing the classics through Looney Tunes and everything else he does best. We've got pronouns!, because his publisher knows a cash grab when she sees one. Pronouns are indeed troubling to us nowadays.

Obviously, McWhorter, being McWhorter, spends the most energy refuting fiddly 19th century grammarians who insist that you can't say, "Timmy and me went to the story," because you wouldn't say, "Me went to the store," but McWhorter argues that "me" bloody well can be a first person pronoun, we all know it can, it is, and no amount of pedantry will stop us from saying, "Me" in answer to, "Who did this?

"Who did this?" "Me." Normal English.

"Who did this?" "I." No. Doesn't work. Kinda formal, mostly insane. No.

"Who did this?" "It was I!" Also, no. Now we're just being dramatic for the sake of drama. Therefore, and for the rest of a long chapter of reasons, "me" can shift as a first person subject pronoun. McWhorter feels more strongly about this than anything else in the book.

But what of you?

What happened to thou?

Why don't we have a second person plural? Seriously. McWhorter doesn't quite answer this because the reasons are lost to history, but he discusses the trouble with y'all and you guys. Both have their places. Both are colloquial. Both are unsatisfactory to some for various reasons. Here we are.

Then there's he/she/it. "Her," especially, gives a lot of mileage. Lots of history finding a female object pronoun that works for English. We like "she" now. We're happy. We don't question. But there's so much to know.

McWhorter is perfectly fine with individuals using they/them, especially since we've been doing it for a thousand years already, since English developed they/them separately from the old Norse pronouns that sound suspiciously similar but are of a different origin. McWhorter even goes a step further and proposes that we use singular verb tenses to designate an individual they. Apparently, this was a thing with individual you back in the day briefly after we got rid of thou. John and Abigail Adams say "you was" to each other in letters, but they wanted it to sound correct. If we said "they was" about our non-binary friend who was acting out a verb in English, it might be clearer. It's easier to change a verb usage than a pronoun, because as McWhorter makes very clear, pronouns do a lot of heavy lifting and they rarely change too much.

Loved it. Glad to read McWhorter again when he's not going crazy.

[Emily McKee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only John McWhorter could write an entertaining book about pronouns! I highly recommend the audiobook, which actually had me laughing out loud!

If you have ever felt that grammar is too uptight and needs to evolve with usage, you’ll like what McWhorter has to say. Having taught several grades of grammar lessons in homeschooling, I felt validated for skipping lessons that tried to teach kids to use “I” as the subject when speaking that was both unnatural and ridiculous.

This is not a political book, but it does touch on politics when relevant.

[Elizabeth Tuttle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first John McWhorter and I am pleased to report that reading a linguistics book about the etymology of pronouns was unexpectedly fun.

[Ariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a lot of fun, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't a giant linguistics nerd. It's a pretty dense read

[Kate P. from the Bachelor]

Listen, I hate a lot of what this dude writes in the newspaper, but I LOVED this book! Linguistics is such a fascinating field and JMcW brings it to life here. Mild spoiler: despite the provocative title, it delivers a full-throated linguistic defense of the modern use of singular they, so phew. That is certainly not the only pronoun trouble referred to… the author takes us on a journey through time to teach us how all pronouns in English have evolved and how they compare to other languages’. Wow, linguists are just like detectives, piecing together clues to form a timeline.

Do yourself a favor and listen to the audio, narrated by the author. This guy is having A BALL doing funny voices (Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck right there in the intro), making fun of grammar pedants, and laughing at his own bad accents. Loved loved loved.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Notable linguist John McWhorter’s treatise on the evolution of pronouns in English (still ongoing, despite of the best efforts of self-appointed rightwing culture warriors) turns out much more entertaining and intriguing than anyone has a right to expect. Despite being an English major and a devotee of grammar and its development, I knew virtually nothing that was in this gem of a book. Highly, highly recommended for word nerds as well as those who don’t believe that books on English usage can be riveting. McWhorter will prove the latter wrong.

Readers who are extremely lucky, as I was, will listen to the audiobook read by McWhorter himself.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admire the humor and levity McWhorter weaves into dry linguistic concepts, making them easier for a wider audience to follow and absorb. The fourth chapter is entitled, “S-He-It Happens”, showing the lightness in tone he uses to explore the topics. But, to fully appreciate the book, some scholarly interest in linguistics is required - I'm a language professional, yet even for me, many of the details and tangents felt unnecessary.

Readers attracted by the title of the book due to interest in identity politics and inclusive language debates could probably skip the first 3 chapters, perhaps even chapter 4, and jump right into the last section that addresses singular they. Compared to other linguists' books I've recently read on the topic, I prefer McWhorter's less-guarded reflection and practical takeaway.

It's going to feel new, it's going to feel imposed, and it's also going to feel a little ambiguous-because we have to use they. And that's because the alternative of a brand-new gender-neutral specific pronoun will almost certainly never get off the ground.

He proposes a third person -s conjugation for use with singular they, an idea I hadn't thought of before. It might be a good starting point for people, like me, for whom

using the new they feels at first like learning to drive on the wrong side of the road. Learnable, but goodness, one must attend closely at first. But to not adjust puts one at the risk of becoming what a later age looks upon, justifiably, in derision.

Because a lot of what THEY covers has to do with the linguistic evolution that was in part based on pronunciation, this is a book that definitely needs to be read in a hybrid way. The audiobook sounds things out, making it much easier to hear the transformation, while simply reading makes your eyes cross and puts everything out of focus. In fact, I actually needed the reading to back up the vocalization because the book got chaotic at times, especially with the verbal incorporation of footnotes and asides.

Nevertheless, listening to McWhorter's narration of the audiobook is much like listening to the performance of a stand-up comedian. Even though I didn't always like THEIR humor, if I were studying linguistics, I'd want THEM to be my professor.

[Yar Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short overview of English pronouns, and covers many linguistic topics in a way that is easy to understand. These histories are all to service an argument for the new singular they which is unconvincing; the author spends most of the book arguing against prescriptivism only to insist on it for this new they, telling "the olds" to get with this "moral enlightenment" yet calling it inevitable and aggressively deriding neologims like "heshe" while ignoring any notion that this new they could be a fad. He is right that if the new they is to be coherent it should be used in the singular ("I invited them so they is coming along too."), but doesn't understand the theys hate this, and his argument for it amounts to 'just because'.
The author is very into himself and own humor which is distracting and at times very annoying, and magnified in the outraged sarcasm in the audiobook, which is performed by the author who is mostly, but not always, clear in phonetic expressions.

[Katharine Ott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Pronoun Trouble" - written by John McWhorter and published in 2025 by Avery, Penguin Random House. Once again, McWhorter breaks down words and phrases into their usages and origins to show how they arrived in our mouths. This one, focusing on the littlest of the parts of speech, reflects his usual example-filled, witty, and thought-provoking style. (Sometimes a little too much detail?!) He devotes a chapter to "they," and, with regard to its fairly recent use as a gender-neutral pronoun, concludes, "We can do this. It will be easier the younger we are, but still." I've listened to McWhorter's podcast Lexicon Valley in the past and just may have to pick it up again. So interesting.

[Natalie Scherck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and it’s discussion of all the pronouns we use. I especially loved the history of the “you” pronouns, such as thee and thou, and how they were used and eventually cast aside. It was a fascinating read all around!

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book, who knew pronouns could be so interesting? Lots of language history. Some discussion about the “they/them” issues but that’s not the crux of the book.

[William Swegles · Rating 5 out of 5]

McWhorter is a master of enjoyably explaining the use and meaning of speech and writing. I think my partner and I have read everything he's written. While reading his books and articles, I keep saying, "Why didn't I think of that?" Or I think that's what people feel and think when they hear or read those words and phrases and why. My friends who read McWhorter and I laugh out loud while saving his prose and sociological and political insights. I'm also favorably impressed with his severe objectivity, although he occasionally claims it's sometimes challenging to be impartial.

[Heidi Bowman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad giving this book only two stars, as I have a lot of respect for John McWhorter and would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about the history of pronouns. McWhorter's linguistic knowledge is amazingly vast. It just was a bit much for me, even though the book is tiny and I know he tried to make it fun. I also really just wanted to read about the pronoun "they" and about neopronouns, so this book was more than I needed. I did find the part on singular "they" very thought-provoking.

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprisingly peppy and digestible read (listen, actually, this is a great audiobook) for a topic that should be, at first glance, very dry. It should be noted that very little of this book has to do with pronouns as we are used to seeing them discussed lately on the news and online. Rather, most of the book is a simple history of the winding path our language's pronouns took to reach their current forms. The pronoun ~issue~ is only really touched on in the final chapter, in which the case for a singular, particular "they" is presented, along with other various facts about the word.

As a queer person, I'm always interested to get a glimpse into the conversation from the outside. McWhorter does a good job of presenting the challenge precedent, and necessity of a singular "they" pronoun. I appreciated his approach, which was both empathetic and also honest about the occasional awkwardness of a new pronoun use case.

I dunno, it's refreshing to see pronouns discussed as a part of speech, rather than as a part of some endless culture war.

[Fiore · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, I really liked how the book looked at how much motivation for looking down at certain phrasing came from racist or classist origins. And while I can appreciation McWhorter's argument for having "they" being the default gender neutral pronoun because it would be infinitely more difficult to make everyone use neopronouns, I wish it mentioned people should be respected in what they want to be called, even if that comes with having to work harder to use them. And yes, I acknowledge that he wrote this book purely from an evolution of language perspective, not a being kind to your fellow person view.

In other news, I will now diss people by calling them thou.

[Chris Auber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually first discovered John McWhorter's low-key hilarious way of teaching linguistics in a DVD series in like 2010. I had forgotten about him until a few months ago, but this book brought me right back into a total nerd-out about why we speak the way we do today (and how we might speak in the future!). Totally fascinating, and very accessibly written for a topic that might seem pretty mundane on the surface.

[Jennifer S · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little wander through I, you, we, and he/she/it before getting to everyone's favorite current pronoun challenge, they. For the grammar geeks among us, some fun musings. I got a little bogged down in some of the comparisons with how other languages treat these pronouns, but learned a few things (especially about thou vs you).

[Doug Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done, sir!
Builds to current use of they and does so effortlessly.

[Michael Esquivel · Rating 5 out of 5]

John McWhorter’s books are always fun to read. He has a way of making complicated topics easy to understand with humor and relatable examples in pop-culture.

[Russell Sigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful read. You would never guess how dramatic the history of "you" is... or should I say thou would never guess

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am neither a linguist nor an etymologist, but I do like words, and I found this book fascinating and hilarious.

[Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely enjoyed this book, and it was a quick read, so I would recommend it to anyone with a particular interest in linguistics.
McWhorter makes it surprisingly interesting to learn the history of English pronouns. Pronouns are such a basic feature of language that we take them for granted, but as anyone who has studied another language knows, the way we do things in English is not the only way. While the singular "they" gets the most attention and debate, the most interesting part of the book for me was about the second person pronouns. What is now "you" was, a few centuries ago, divided into many different pronouns based on number, gender, and formality. Over time it simplified into what we use today, which McWhorter describes as being highly unusual (the vast majority of languages distinguish at least between singular and plural pronouns). "You" does a lot of work, which is why almost every regional English dialect comes up with its own plural form (y'all, yinz, you guys, youse, etc).
The "they" chapter was interesting too. McWhorter makes a strong case that the impersonal "they" is grammatically correct in English, but distinguishes it from the up-and-coming nonbinary "they", which he expresses support for but acknowledges that it is a heavy lift for many people. I liked his proposal to use singular verb conjugation for singular "they" (e.g. "Judith Butler is a non-binary author. They writes a lot of books"), although I am skeptical that it will catch on.
Stylistically, McWhorter generally keeps things engaging, but uses a very "coastal elite" set of references to engage his audience. It's clear that he is an intellectual who exists in a bubble of other intellectuals, and some readers who are not Ivy League professors like him may be turned off by this.
It's an interesting little book – check it out if you like this kind of thing!

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title definitely capitalizes on the "drama" around pronouns in our current culture but it's not at all a culture war book. If you enjoyed linguistics lectures but never actually got good grades on those exams, this is perfect for a layperson to be educated on the history of I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they.

[Rob]

Way more than I, you, me, they ever cared to know about pronouns, but actually fascinating and well written. I listened to the audiobook, which McWhorter narrates. he does a great job. I can imagine he would be a super engaging professor.

[Svenja K · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

I am quite sad to give such a bad review because I liked the author's other works but this I could not finish.
I stumbled over two pretty grave mistakes at the end of the chapter about the "I" and then again another at the beginning of the "you" chapter and that did it for me. Sadly.

[Laura✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep dive into the evolution and use of pronouns that was a quick, informative, and often humorous read.

[Jody Masch · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite a mishmash of an argument. Some interesting facts about language, but felt it could’ve used some tidying up.