"They" has been used as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun in English continuously for many centuries, starting before misguided lovers of Latin tried to impose a Latin-inspired rules on English.
The only problem the article here raises with "they" is that its historically not been used with a proper-named antecedent, but surely its a lot less disruptive to expand the use of singular "they" than to introduce a new pronoun.
When it's important that you communicate that he is male, you have to make an extra statement.
Otherwise he is just somebody and you don't know what gender he is at all. Unless someone tells you he is male, that is.
But if it doesn't matter whether he is male, female, or something else -- there's no reason to specify his gender. Basically, we don't really care who he is.
I find singular "they" too kludgey to tolerate, and I'm tired of people drawing offense where none was intended, so I just formulate my sentences to avoid gendered pronouns. It's not likely to help, since the people who are looking for offense are going to continue to find it somewhere, but I feel like I've done my part.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 21.5 ms ] threadThe only problem the article here raises with "they" is that its historically not been used with a proper-named antecedent, but surely its a lot less disruptive to expand the use of singular "they" than to introduce a new pronoun.
When it's important that you communicate that he is male, you have to make an extra statement.
Otherwise he is just somebody and you don't know what gender he is at all. Unless someone tells you he is male, that is.
But if it doesn't matter whether he is male, female, or something else -- there's no reason to specify his gender. Basically, we don't really care who he is.
That's why we use the generic word "he".