my latest windmill to tilt at

[rone]

English already has perfectly useful gender-neutral pronouns: it, its. Use them. Do not use they, them for singular objects. Do not use the abhorrent, artificial 'hir', 'zie', 'blim', 'gur', or whatever. Yes, people can be called 'it'. Deal with it.

Comments

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Then they're not well-edited publications. QED.

There should be a Godwin's law for QED usage on the net.

Not only are these standards for well-edited publications, but authors such as Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, and a ton others do the same.

A survey of classics finds 75 different widely regarded authors use the they/their construction to no ill effect of their status as authors.

The summarized list is here. (http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000421.php)

Examples and discussion from Jane Austen's work are here. (http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html)

I would regret that George Bernard Shaw isn't here to defend himself against your claim that to use the they/their construction is at least to be poorly edited, and perhaps even to use an arbitrary value of "educated", but I don't he would care much.

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

I respect your opinion.

A survey of classics finds 75 different widely regarded authors use the they/their construction to no ill effect of their status as authors.

Sure. But I wouldn't hire 'em as editors.

I also consider George Bernard Shaw primarily a playwright...and rarely an editor.

Hey, no one's going to change my mind that written English has become a morass, lacking precision and elegance, precisely because writers of some renown have bastardized usage for their own purposes.

Next up, VERBING NOUNS!