牛津博客词汇辨析：themselves & themself

5/26/2016 沪江英语

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The standard reflexive pronoun form which corresponds to the plural forms they and them is themselves:

Themselves是对应于复数词they和them的标准反身代词：

I just showed the boys the refrigerator and told them to help themselves.

我只是让这些男孩看了冰箱并告诉他们要依靠自己。

In current English, they and them are sometimes used in singular contexts, to refer to a person whose gender is unspecified . For example:

在现代英语中，they和them有时也用于指代单数语境，指一个人的性别未确认时。例如：

If your child is thinking about a gap year, they can get good advice from this website.

如果你的孩子正在考虑空档年（高中毕业后与进大学前的一年），他（她）可以在这个网站获得建议。

In recent years, people have started to use themself to correspond to this singular use of they and them: it’s seen as the logical singular form of themselves. For example:

近些年来，人们开始使用themself来表示they和them的单数形式：将其视为themselves逻辑上的单数形式。例如：

This is the first step in helping someone to help themself.

这是帮助他人自救的第一步。

This form is not yet accepted by everyone, though, and you should avoid using it in formal written contexts. If you were writing the sentence above, you should say:

然而这种形式目前还不能被所有人接受，在较为正式的写作当中应该避免这种用法。如果你想使用上面这个句子的话，应该这样写：

This is the first step in helping someone to help themselves.

这是帮助他人自救的第一步。

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