Dear Geist, Where do you stand on the use of they as a singular pronoun? As in “Jody couldn't attend the meeting, but they sent a summary of the project.” Even when people agree that it's high time for a gender-neutral pronoun, an awful lot of them reject they because it's bad grammar. —Calvin, Brandon MB Dear Calvin, Beware the self-proclaimed “sticklers” and “perfectionists.” The fact is that speakers and writers of English have been using they as a singular pronoun since the 1300s. You can find smooth, comprehensible examples in works by Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen and William Thackeray, among others. Sometime in the late 1800s, they as a singular pronoun came under attack; H.W. Fowler and other influential grammarians escorted it into disrepute. But we needed they, so it came roaring back. In 2015, it even made the Oxford Word of the Year shortlist. —The Editors
