Themself vs Themselves

We have always studied, in English Reflexive Pronouns, that for singular, we should use 'self':

     I = myself
     you = yourself
     he = himself / she = herself / it = itself

Instead, for plural, we should use 'selves':

     we = ourselves
     you = yourselves
     they = themselves

However, I have heard "themself" a few times and seemingly, for the same reason: to obviate the need for gender explicit pronouns.  

Let's go to make a review:

• "Themselves" is the reflexive pronoun traditionally used in the third person plural. Ex.:  They hurt themselves while playing football. 
• More recently, "themselves" has been used as a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to a single person and avoid the cumbersome "himself or herself" phrase. Ex.:  Somebody hurt themselves while playing football. (You want to avoid specifying if the "somebody" is male or female.)
• Traditional English grammar would have the above sentence as: Somebody hurt himself or herself while playing football. 
• The use of themselves as a reflexive pronoun to refer to a single person is widespread, but considered by some as incorrect on the grounds that a plural cannot be used for just one person. So, people started using "themself" instead. Ex.:  Somebody hurt themself while playing football. 

The shorter OED (Oxford English Dictionary) offers this thought : "Use of themselves to refer to a single person of unspecified sex is now becoming acceptable : see note at they . The apparently more logical form themself is not widely accepted , however ." 

For some more information, you may want to look at this:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/themself
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/themselves-or-themself

Hope this helps.



Please, If you find any mistake or you have another point of view about the information that I have posted, please leave a comment. We can all learn together! This blog feeds on your coments!!