At 12:09 AM 7/18/03 -0700, Delirium wrote:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
Why are people so unwilling to use "they" to mean "he/she"?
Well, to some people it seems ungrammatical, since "they" hasn't been used as a singular pronoun until very recently,
Your definition of "very recently" must include the early 19th century, then: Jane Austen used "they" as a singular pronoun. In fact, singular they is older than "generic he".
so you end up with the "wrong" verb tenses. So when you say something like "They fall asleep as they watch TV," it sounds very much like you're talking about multiple people.
And when you say "Ask your doctor what he thinks" it sounds entirely as though you're talking about a man, whereas it's entirely likely that you're talking about a woman.
Neither is perfect.