PC vs. euphemism

[Robert A. Rothstein]

Emily Saunders wrote:
> If I may also note, to the probable horror of strict grammarians, 
> there has been a growing tendency to use the third person plural 
> pronoun when referring to a single individual of undetermined gender.  
> If a person wished to be succinct (avoid the awkward "his or her") and 
> yet indicate that the gender could go either way, "they" might 
> consider the 3rd person plural.  Another example of language and 
> attitudes sorting themselves out and evolving?  Perhaps, in time, 
> "they" will be acceptable and even recommended in college level essays 
> as a genderless 3rd person singular pronoun...?

As much as I strive not to use "they," "their" etc. with a singular 
referent in my own writing or speaking, having been trained to follow 
the dictates of certain eighteenth-century language mavens, as a 
linguist I have to acknowledge 1) the fact that languages (including 
English) change and 2) that there is a long history of such usage in 
English. See, for example, 
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html, for a list of 
examples going as far back as the fifteenth century (/c/ *1489* CAXTON 
Sonnes of Aymon i. 39 Eche of theym sholde... make theymselfe redy) and 
including Shakespeare (There's not a man I meet but doth salute me, / As 
if I were their well-acquainted friend), Chesterfield (*1759*  Lett. IV. 
ccclv. 170 If a person is born of a gloomy temper ... they cannot help 
it) and Lawrence Durrell (You do not have to understand someone in order 
to love them). The site also includes an account of the history of 
"singular their."

Bob Rothstein

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