Jumping down someone’s throat about it is stupid - unless they’re being malicious, then jump away and tear whomever a new one. They aren’t technically wrong, though. “They” is an ideal word that’s been correct in both the singular and plural sense for centuries. Given more recent social developments, it’s an easy way to be inclusive and not “risk” being wrong.
(I’m assuming you used literally “he/she” to refer to someone of unknown gender)
“He/his” used for be acceptable for people/things of unknown gender as well. Point out a random animal on a walk to your parents and there’s a high chance that they will use male pronouns.
In some obscure mmo I played as a kid, someone was referring to a famous mod with male pronouns, going how it is acceptable If you don’t know the gender and it’s more polite than the alternatives. Now this was long, long, long before agender, and other gendered terms were really a known thing. If you were to told someone you were gender fluid or something like that, they would look at you like you just grew a second head. I don’t quite remember what was said, or why it was being talked about, it was around 20 years ago now. Things have changed since then.
I still fall back on the male pronoun default from time to time, but I try not to as much. But it is a learned behavior that is hard to break entirely.
Sure. But also, I was a 90s kid too(?) - computers were boy stuff, dont’y’know, and girls should go play with dolls instead. Pedantically, I don’t think it was correct to use when unknown, it was just that the “chance of being wrong” was a lot smaller because we really did assume “anyone in position X has to be a man” a lot more the further back you go. Even if it’s just the 90-00s.
Man used to be synonymous with human. For instance, when people talk about humans in prehistory, they might use the phrase “early man.” In that context, the word “man” is gender neutral.
In the past, English had “thou” for 2nd person singular and “you” was exclusive to the 2nd person plural.
I don’t see why that can’t happen with “they” vs “he/she” too.
Though it’s a bit sad that it would likely result in a more ambiguous language that could potentially lead to misunderstandings. Unless we start to use constructs like “they all” for adding specificity, in a similar way as how “you all” (or y’all) is sometimes used.
They+all=th’all? Adding this to my lexicon. Y’all is sacred to me, being from the south. Th’all shall be canonized along with it.
Absolutely if anyone has a problem with that, th’all can go fuck themselves.
Y’all is already gender neutral, though, and therefore superior to any other pronoun
