In a world where equality - as long as it is only symbolic - is the order of the day, establishments, institutions, authors and speakers spare no effort in showing how considerate and respectful they are, at least on paper.
Applying for a job, you'll find a whole paragraph dedicated to this extravagant show of sympathy and fairness, where we read that consideration for employment will be given without any regard to race, colour, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, physical disability, fashion tastes.
At a conference I recently attended, one speaker, in what she or he clearly thought a clever idiom, delivered a poetic phrase characterised by an overindulgence of the 'his or her' construction, something along these lines: "while thanks to his or her this, and his or her that, he or she will achieve his or her objective according to his or her imagination."
The smug look on her face as her recitation of such poetry came to a graceful politically correct close, was a sign of her gender-inclusive linguistic triumph and clearly attested to her thinking it was a victory achieved through clever stratagem and cunning semantics.
It's not, and it wasn't.
It's idiotic.
In an article I had written on "Men of Honour" (TMIS, 5 October 2014), I had put a postscript explaining that 'men' was being used as a generic descriptor. This is the way to do it: noting that the use of generic referencing is inclusive of both genders, without actually having to tire the reader with redundant particular pronouns.
I find nothing wrong with the use of 'he' to refer to a generic or indeterminate antecedent. Sure, the insistence of replacing the generic 'he' with gender-neutral verbosity once meant something: it was an act of defiance and rebellion. The innovative use of 'she' instead of 'he' by some writers also drove a point home, but now seems overstated and counterproductive, since the generic pronoun is in this case replaced by a specific feminine pronoun. Apart from the initial political reasons, it makes no sense to apply "femininity" to a generic form.
We've moved forward since then, and while I am not discounting the reality that abuse still exists - and will always exist for that matter - or undermining the efforts towards greater social justice, I am sure this state of affairs is beyond any help "he or she" can give.
This obsession of dressing up our actions and words may reveal what we ashamedly strive to hide: a grim social reality which is clean on the outside but filthy on the inside.
Still, for those who insist on being, or rather seen to be, absolutely fair while not sounding like a parrot, the English language provides an alternative for those interested in maintaining linguistic dignity and decorum.
The Oxford Dictionaries online suggests the use of the singular 'they' to make up for the lack of a gender-free third person singular pronoun. The same source acknowledges that the use of 'he' may be considered outdated and sexist - which is bound to win over the politically sensitive ones - and offers the third person plural pronoun as a gender-neutral option for singular reference.
'They' used in this sense becomes a generic pronoun referring to an antecedent with no specific gender and assumes the role of the otherwise absent singular personal pronoun of indeterminate gender and thus can represent either gender, or any in between.
What's more, this isn't a new left-wing hippie idea: use of the singular 'they' apparently dates back to the 16th century.
The site directs the reader to the continuation of the pronoun battle on the Oxford Dictionaries blog, an invitation I accept. There I am reminded of another alternative which has sometimes made its ugly but pragmatic appearance: the algebraic "s/he". This option is not so practical in speech though: I cringe at the thought of having to listen to that speaker saying "s-slash-he" or, even worse, "she-slash-he" over and over throughout his or her stylistically incorrect speech.
The problem with the 'they' alternative, however, is that it is bound to attract the ire of the grammatically correct, albeit they constitute a small minority. These people cannot stand seeing a plural pronoun referring to a singular noun, no matter how noble its intentions. There is no agreement on gender and number agreement, but I learn that writers like Thackeray and George Bernard Shaw, who wrote very agreeable texts, had no qualms in using the construction.
Whether gender inclusion should trump grammatical common sense - or, for some, aesthetic - is a moot point: I myself am sceptical as to whether there is any further advantage to real gender inclusion to be gained through grammatical gender neutrality. As the blog reveals, the masculine forms were, in the past, taken to include either sex according to context. The linguist rebellion was a symbolic act which has, to my mind, served its purpose. Nevertheless, in an age where imagination has taken a second place to literal meaning, I can understand how some people struggle to picture an all-inclusive androgynous 'he'.
Still, this lack of imagination does not augur well for other ambiguous uses of pronouns. Take the proverb "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" for instance, which, as The Free Dictionary explains, means that "it is better to deal with a person or thing you know, even if you do not like them, than to deal with a new person or thing who could be even worse". Who is the "you" referring to there? Does this mean that it is a better for everyone to deal with a person or thing I, the pedantic author of this piece, know, or with what the one dealing with that person or thing knows? Obviously, it's the latter but I fail to see how this analogy does not stand: why is it that people have no problem imagining an other 'you', an impersonal 'you', and yet cannot get their heads around a "Man" which does not refer to man at all?
Somehow, people seem to have no problem grasping the generic 'you', but the generic 'he' is looked upon with scorn. Most blame its masculine twin for this, but arguing that the generic he is patriarchal means that the twins are being confused, since to argue thus entails the removal of this he's generic role, for how could a generic he ever be particular?
I must admit that, while writing the article I mentioned above, I too had considered the use of the singular 'they', but in the end I opted for what I believe is the more grammatically elegant solution.
That said, there may be a simple answer to the perceived double-standard. It may well be that it's not people's imagination that is lacking, but the gender in a truly epicene pronoun: while the non-generic he is definitely male, the you is ambiguous even in its specific referential function, only being male or female depending on context and never in nature.
The 'they' does enjoy the same gender ambivalence, but is decidedly plural in number which begs the question: if the 'he' cannot be sensibly used as a generic pronoun, how can the 'they' be sensibly used as a singular pronoun?
Whatever the case, both the Oxford Dictionaries and the Oxford Words blog agree with me that the "he or she" structure should be used sparingly:
"This can work well, as long as you don't have to keep repeating 'he or she', 'his or her', etc. throughout a piece of writing."
There seems to be consensus on this: using "he and she" or "his or her" ad nauseam is not clever. It's simply annoying.