Stylebooks Finally Embrace the Single 'They' (cjr.org)

Two major style manuals are now allowing the singular use of "they" in certain circumstances. While this is a victory for common sense, the paths taken are unusual in the evolution of usage. From a report on Columbia Journal Review: Both manuals, the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style, emphasize that "they" cannot be used with abandon. Even so, it's the middle of the end for the insistence that "they" can be only a plural pronoun. To recap: In English, there is no gender-neutral pronoun for a single person. In French, for example, the pronoun on can stand in for "he" or "she." English has no such equivalent; "it" is our singular pronoun, so devoid of gender that calling a person "it" is often considered insulting. We could use "one," but that is a very impersonal pronoun. Consider this sentence, for instance. "Everyone needs to be sure to tighten ____ safety belt before approaching the cliff." The article adds: For hundreds of years, anyone writing formally would default to "he." Advances in women's rights led to the clumsy "he or she." Many writers alternate "he" or "she." This twisting and turning is because what's known as "the epicene they" has been considered incorrect. [...] But that's not the "they" the style guides have let loose. Simply, the singular "they" will be allowed if someone prefers that pronoun.

Comments

How

[aoism]

How is this related to tech in anyway whatsoever?

Other usages that are changing

[Solandri]

Other shifts I've noticed in general vernacular over the last 30 years:

• Less vs. fewer. Countable items are supposed to use 'fewer' ("10 items or fewer"). Non-countable items are supposed to use 'less' ("less water"). But nowadays I hardly ever see 'fewer' being used. Nearly everyone uses 'less' for both cases.
• "and I" vs "and me". When I was young, the common error was to use "and me" when you were supposed to use "and I". e.g. "My wife and me went to the party" is incorrect. "My wife and I went to the party" is correct. The frequent correction by grammar nazis caused people to overcompensate, and now they say "and I" even when they're supposed to use "and me." e.g. "The dog sat by my wife and I" is incorrect. "The dog sat by my wife and me" is correct. A quick way to test is to eliminate the conjunction. "The dog sat by I" is clearly wrong, while "The dog sat by me" is right. So in this case you're supposed to use "and me".
• Who vs whom. As with "and I" vs "and me" above, who is a subject, whom is an object. But almost everyone uses 'who' for both subject and object now.

BTW, my solution to "he or she" in writing was to simply add a slash - "s/he". One extra character and the same number of characters as "they". Unfortunately there's no way to pronounce it, so when speaking I usually use "they".

Don't even get me started on the silly rules about punctuation inside or outside quotation marks, which prioritize conformity over meaning.

Re:Very poor example.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another poor example is the use of French as an example of a language that "does it right". French has the pronouns "il" (he, singular), "ils" (he, plural), "elle" (she, singular), and "elles" (she, plural). There is simply no neuter pronoun. In common speech, you can use the indeterminate third person "on", which is closer to the English "you" ("on peut aller a gauche ou a droit" [you can go left or right]). However, in general, French is very sexist* when speaking in the third person. If the gender is unknown, it always defaults to the masculine, and in the plural, if the gender is unknown for a single single member of a group, the masculine is used.

German is similar to English in that there is a masculine, feminine and neuter pronoun, but the neuter is never used for people. However, the gendered pronoun problem is largely moot due to the way they use the indeterminate third person and the formal second person. The indeterminate third person ("Mann", as in "Mann kann links oder rechts gehen" [you can go left or right]) is generally accepted as proper speech. English is a bit awkward with polite imperatives; the use of the third person in commands provides the requisite social distance without compromising the command (eg, "passengers must put their seat belts on" instead of "put your seat belts on, passengers!"). The German formal second person in imperative form provides the requisite politeness without requiring a gender neutral third person pronoun. ("Bitte gehen Sie nach links" [please go left]) is a very common construction.

Spanish is the only language that I know of that has a fairly elegant solution: you can omit the pronoun and it is inferred from the conjugation and declination. So if you don't know the gender you can just omit the pronouns entirely ("Dijo que no sabia" translates as "He or she said that he or she didn't know").

*: Whether this is truly sexist is up to debate; I tend to think not but others think so.