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Wei_Dai comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong
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Do you agree that using 'they' as a singular referring pronoun is not yet a part of natural English (i.e., a majority of English speakers do not naturally use it that way, nor expect it to be used that way), but that usage is being proposed by some as a useful reform, while others oppose it?
My point is that making this change involves a large cost, including a period of confusion as some people start using 'they' as a singular referring pronoun while others are not expecting it to be used that way. And we can foresee that it will increase the amount of ambiguity in English even after this period of confusion is over. Is 'he or she' really so bad that this costly reform is worthwhile?
As wedrifid suggests, I think you overestimate the cost. Heck, English allows the verbing of nouns - screwing around with grammatical number is chump change.
Most of the people I talk to accept 'they' as natural English. My highschool English teachers would probably be an exception, as was I until I decided to let it go. Wnoise probably has a point that 'singular they' is a matter of dialect, with most, perhaps unfortunately, having lost some of the more elegant subtleties.
A good question. I'm happy to leave it with 'singular they' for most people but 'he or she' for people who want to signal sophistication (by speaking correctly). It is probably too late to hope to gain much relief from ambiguity except when you are familiar with your audience's manner of speech.
EDIT: I missed the great, great grandparent about singular bound vs singular referring. Thanks Wei.
I do not agree that there is a singular "natural English", but rather many overlapping dialects and gradients. In many of them, some usages of "singular they" are completely accepted, in others, next to no usage is.