U.S. linguists on Friday chose “they” as their Word of the Decade, recognizing the growing use of third-person plural pronouns as a singular form to refer to people who identify their gender as neither entirely male nor entirely female.

Separately, the American Dialect Society bestowed its Word of the Year honors on the increasingly common practice of introducing oneself in correspondence or socially by the set of pronouns one prefers to be called by - declaring in an email, for example, “pronouns: she/her.”

The two awards were decided by some 350 member of the society at its annual meeting of academics, graduate students and word lovers who voted by a show of hands, said Ben Zimmer, a linguist and lexicographer who chairs the group’s New Words Committee.

The most popular pick for Word of the Year was “(my) pronouns,” a reflection of “how the personal expression of gender identity has become an increasing part of our shared discourse,” the society said in a statement announcing the outcome.