The reflexive form of the singular "they" used in this wiki is "themselves."
This discrepancy comes from me using the built-in Chrome spellchecker around 2018 when Deltarune came out which always corrected “themself” to “themselves”, forgetting that we ever had a line about this in the Manual of Style. When Gil made the first draft of the new Manual of Style for Deltarune Wiki, I realized the line was there and Gil also mentioned he used the word “themselves” more frequently, so we changed it to “themselves” instead. The spellcheckers no longer appear to be doing that. However, I’ve been trying to unify the two manuals of style recently, so that we don’t have to maintain two separate copies of what is mostly the same document.
When the rule was written into the manual on Undertale Wiki, there were 0 uses of “themselves” in singular context and 0 uses of “themself” in Undertale. When the rule was written into the manual on Deltarune Wiki, there were 0 uses of “themselves” in singular context and 0 uses of “themself” in Deltarune. As of Chapter 2, we have 2 uses of “themselves” in singular context in Deltarune (one referring to Kris, one referring to an imaginary vocalist), and still 0 uses of “themself”. However, one point toward “themself” in singular context is that it differentiates from “themselves”, being explicit in that it’s referring to a single person using they/them (or unknown) pronouns and not to a group of people.
Both of these forms are correct, and have been in use for a long time. My personal preference is “themselves”, because it’s actually used in Deltarune, and because “themself” would be easy to correct to “themselves” via automation, in case anyone gets it wrong. But before I change it in the Manual of Style, I’d like to organize a formal community vote on this: what are your thoughts?
As someone who goes by they/them pronouns I'm going to vote for themself because I think it's more validating to address us as individuals than to stick with what's often considered conventional and have it be plural. I totally see the ingame argument though, and to be honest, if we're going to make exceptions to that rule I'd probably rule out things like typographer's quotation too.
I agree with Hinikimori, "themself" is singular because it refers to an individual, "themselves" is plural because it typically refers to multiple people. If "themselves" is actually in Deltarune we should probably use that though.
I'm pretty sure my speaking usage of one or the other is completely dependent on what I decide in the moment would flow better. I feel like "themself" has some more finality to it and works nicer at the end of a sentence or clause, whereas "themselves" flows better in a continuous string of words.
Of course, I recognize that this is pretty much completely subjective and also at least moderately insane, so... idk, flip a coin or something.
I would also like to add my vote towards "themself".
I think the argument of "themselves" being used in-game to refer to Kris singularly is reasonable, but regardless of the game's script, "themself" is just practically useful. "Themself" is unambiguously a singular pronoun, which can be used to differentiate itself from the potentially-plural "themselves".
I just also think it's silly that there exists this discrepancy between the two wikis' style guides lol
EDIT: I also think this goes without saying: arguments for how "themself" sounds better/worse is purely subjective and not actually a real argument
My vote is for "themselves". I actually like when there's an imbalance between a word's grammatical form and it's meaning.
Portuguese has something similar. The 2nd-person pronoun virtually everyone uses is grammatically 3rd-person. This doesn't stop it for being 2nd-person for all other intents and purposes.
Also, we go by how the game does it with other issues. I don't think we should stop here.
Definitely leaning towards "themself" on this one. "Yourselves" also has "yourself", and I strongly believe that singular they should get the same treatment.
Deltarune using "themselves" makes me consider it, but I still think themself is clearer to understand and should be used more often, so that's my vote. I won't really be upset if the vote goes to "themselves", though.
I definitely think it should be "themselves". It matches with the way singular "they" is used grammatically (people don't say "they is" for example) and it sounds much more natural than "themself". I've personally heard "themselves" a lot more commonly than "themself" when used with singular "they". The fact that Deltarune uses it too is even more reason to standardize on "themselves".
Deltarune uses themselves, and it's also correct prescriptively, so let's opt for that:
She made music against the law.
Unless you make a song she likes.
But the only JUNK she enjoys...
Are reverse diss-tracks, where
the vocalist puts themselves
down, and praises Queen...
Or noise music.
e.g. Kris is referred to with themselves by Noelle:
(They snapped themselves out of it...)
(Proceed...)
(Why... did they keep saying that...?)
Personally I prefer themself because it makes it more clear that it's the singular they rather than plural they. I don't think it's a super big deal if there's a discrepancy between the wiki and the game if they're both understandable.
The vote ended in favor of “themselves” (8 votes) over “themself” (5 votes), with 1 neutral vote. I’ll be updating my draft of the standard, and writing a new post with all the proposed changes (though this one I’ll consider decided). Thank you everyone who voted!
