We had this discussion on my blog once already. But anyhow, since it's one of my personal grammar crusades, here's another article on the history of using “they/their/them” as the first-person singular instead of the contemporary but much more awkward “he/she” convention.
“…for most of the existence of the English language, ‘they’ was used
as the accepted singular gender-neutral pronoun. The use of ‘it’ was
reserved for objects, as it is today, but for people the pronoun of
choice was they/their/them.
So how did this all change? Courtesy of the English Parliament.”
Comments 2
Nice link. I didn't know that about the English Parliament – I'll have to bookmark that page and keep it as reserve ammunition for the next time this subject comes up. 🙂
Why am I not surprised that the male-biased usage was originally a government decision?