Use of the signular they doesn't create confusion, any more than does a singular you does.
Perhaps to you it doesn't. It does to others, and that should be considered.
I'm not arguing about "correct." Language evolves and I tend to think of grammar in descriptive terms rather than prescriptive. In this case, both a prescriptive rule such as "'they' can only be used a plural pronoun," OR "'he' can never be used as a gender-neutral pronoun" are both limiting and arbitrary. All I'm suggesting is that for some (I suspect many,) the effect of using "they" as a singular pronoun is jarring. For some audiences, the use of "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun might be jarring, but my suspicion is that these readers are the minority as this usage of "he" is the long-standing convention of which we are all aware.
Last edited by JohnGalt; 08-27-2012 at 02:39 PM.
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