Epicene pronouns
Lastly, there simply is no other solution acceptable to the vast numbers of people who actually speak the English language. The re-emergence of this use of “their” is natural, logical, and confuses no one. It is not sloppiness and it is not ignorance. It is a positive example of our language evolving to encompass a new social awareness, in this case the somewhat belated recognition that not everyone enjoys being referred to as “him.” The defense rests.
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Stan Cook:
June 5th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
This was a truly interesting article. I have been looking something like this for a long time. I agree with your solution. Any other solution would require teaching a “vast number” of people how to use the new pronoun. I recently found, after asking around, that english grammer is almost an elective subject in todays high schools. Therfore, we would have teach our children what a pronoun is and how it is used then explain what the new pronoun is all about.
I enjoy all of your articles and I learn a lot about my mother language.