mxx1's avatar

They

The gender correct (sic) pronoun has always annoyed me because it sounds grammatically incorrect. There’s only one of them, and yet they are plural.

But then I noticed we all do it. When we don’t know the gender of the person we will say “when are they coming?”

So we’re all grammatically incorrect. What English needs is a solution that isn’t plural.

Arguably (and very) the French have a solution. La and Le can be abbreviated to L’.

Noting that she and he, him and her, etc are derived from each other (generally the feminine just has an added ‘s’ or switched out and an ‘i’ for an ‘e’) we could adapt the French solution thusly;

She and He => ‘e or #e

Him and Her => H’ or H#