I’m fine with the singular “they” for a non-gender-specific pronoun. I have so much contempt for all the silly new invented pronouns that I would go to any length necessary to avoid having to make use of one of them.
There’s no “US board of the American dialect of English”. Changes like this won’t and can’t (and perhaps shouldn’t) occur then. There is no one to make this a decree.
Sure, in terms of official grammar rules, but AFAICT we’re not talking about official grammar rules here; we’re observing the actual evolution of spoken language.
:dubious: To be fair, it really doesn’t take a whole lot of “reeducation” to convey the message “Use the pronoun forms that an individual prefers when referring to that individual”.
There, there, calm down; I’m not seeing evidence of anybody “forbidding” anything when it comes to gender and language use.
The question of what to use as a non-gender-specific honorific if you’re not sure whether or how to identify an individual’s gender is a puzzling one, but AFAICT nobody is “forbidding” anyone to use “Sir” or “Ma’am” for people who prefer those honorifics.
I suppose we could revive the all-purpose Quaker form of address “Friend”, or the old revolutionary “Citizen” or “Comrade” if we want to sound a bit edgier. 
But probably the custom we eventually end up with will be none of these, but instead something that’s evolved naturally from everyday usage.
Yes. I can still remember how weird it felt to me when women started to be referred to by just their last name without the honorific. Up until then, men were often referred to as ‘Smith’ for example, but a woman was always Miss/Mrs. Smith.
Didn’t take me long to adjust though, and I don’t feel anything was lost by the change.
Changing to genderless pronouns could happen, too, but I just use ‘they.’
I don’t think it is his new system.
No, the use of “they” to refer to a specific person with known gender is becoming more common among younger people. This article discusses it and quotes the OED which says:
I’m not young but I sometimes find myself using it when the gender is known but not particularly relevant, e.g. “I asked the nurse and they said…”
Using “they/them” to refer to a person whose gender is unknown or unclear has been standard English for centuries. Usually because the identity of the person being discussed is unknown or hypothetical in some way (“If anyone wants to use the restroom in the lobby, they should ask the receptionist for a key.”) What’s changing here isn’t the language, it’s the growing acceptance to the idea that an individual can not have a gender at all. If you accept that concept, then such people fall pretty easily into the, “Subject’s gender is unknown,” use case that’s been a part of modern English since before Shakespeare.
If you don’t accept that concept, that’s a different conversation, but it’s still not one about changing grammar.
Well, people screw up pronouns all the time. If you’re being excruciatingly correct, a corporation is “it,” not “they.” But a great many people say things like, “Disney is doing this, and they will…as a result…” Of course what is actually meant is “the people running Disney.” That “they.” But still.
In siuations where the somewhat awkward “he or she” is used, such as in a contract, I would be okay with “it” replacing that. “It” is a good signular non-gendered pronoun. I am also okay with the disclaimer that the male pronoun is to be viewed as encompassing both genders. Or, I guess, any variety.
I once had a job title where I was called a repairman. It would have been extremely awkward to change that to “repairwoman” or even “repairer” and there was no need. If I’m gonna be offended by having “-man” appended to something (chair-, repair-, sales-, spokes-, et cetera) then why am I not similarly offended by “wo-man”? (Of course I also had a job title where I was called a desk. “Night copy desk.” Should I have been called a deskette?")
When has that ever mattered? A lot of people say “ain’t” and use double negatives in their speech. People all over the internet say “loose” when they mean “lose.” We don’t say, “Hey, people are using it, so it is now acceptable English!” We don’t call that an evolution of the language.
We tell them that their language usage is wrong and provide free public education to correct it.
…until it becomes so common that it becomes accepted use. It gets listed in the dictionaries and style guides, etc. That is exactly what evolution of language is. The singular “they” is already at that stage.
How people use language always matters. In fact, nothing else matters. Language isn’t defined by what’s logical or historically correct. It’s defined by how people use it.
That’s literally exactly what the evolution of language is.
Just use chairperson, repairperson, spokesperson, and woperson.
Only in the context of a singular individual with an unknown gender. This “Alex brought their laptop” nonsense is something that I have never heard a single person use.
Again, how very common are double negatives and “ain’t”? They are far more common than this type of usage, so why not them?
Perhaps you can answer why double negatives and “ain’t” are not accepted language such that if I write it in a professional setting, I cannot say that language is evolving?
“Ain’t” is definitely accepted as a word. Double negatives depend on the usage, are you talking about double negative to indicate a positive? Those are definitely acceptable.
Sorry, my mistake–that should be chairpersxn, repairpersxn, spokespersxn, and wopersxn. Can’t have the gendered “son” in the words. That is on the wrong side of hxstory.
Yup. We may dislike and even resist certain evolutionary developments in language (I personally will cling for as long as I can to the position that “loose” for “lose” is an error rather than a variant, although I’ve grudgingly conceded defeat on “based off of” for “based on”), but we don’t get to decide whether or not they eventually happen.
And we have no official authority backing up our resistance. Once a particular usage becomes sufficiently widely accepted, it is by definition acceptable, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.
Sure, that’s easy: Formal written language always evolves more slowly than informal, particularly spoken, language.
But even formal written language evolves. I remember (fondly) when you could not get away with using “who” for “whom” as an objective-case relative pronoun in formal academic English. Now it’s quite common.
It shouldn’t require any reeducation at all. This has been common courtesy for longer than English has existed. Calling someone the wrong pronoun has been a serious insult at least since writing was invented.
Granted, I sympathize with the hesitation to use invented pronouns. It’s very hard to incorporate new near-nonsense words into your core vocabulary. But if someone’s a man, call them “he” and if they’re a woman, call them “she”, and if you don’t know or they say they’re something else besides those genders, use “they”. Basic, to the point, no weird words to learn, and in accordance with thousands of years of tradition. I see no reason even conservatives can’t support that simple guidline, unless they’re purposefully being dicks.
Just because you’re not paying attention doesn’t mean it’s not a thing.
I don’t know anyone who’s taken as much as an intro to linguistics class who doesn’t agree that double negatives and ain’t are valid constructions and words. That they are usually frowned upon in formal writing doesn’t make them any less legitimate.
That drives me nuts. “Lightening” for “lightning” is another. (Don’t even get me started on “should of”…)
ETA: “Lead” instead of “led” for the past tense of “lead” rather than the element “lead.” 