[Python-Dev] Vagaries of "their" in English (was Re: Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream)

[Westley Martínez]

On Sun, 2011-03-06 at 10:25 +1100, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Daniel A. Welty wrote:
> 
> > *  "they" and "their" are plural, and should never be used in the singular.
> 
> Thank you for sharing your option here, but you are not a linguist and 
> you are simply wrong.
> 
> At least two people in this thread have already linked to Wikipedia's 
> article on singular-they, which has extensive discussion about its 
> validity, complete with references, as well as more accessible 
> discussions written by professional language experts like Michael 
> Quinion or Geoffrey Pullum. In case you missed them the first few times, 
> here they are again:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
> http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-the2.htm
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005423.html
> (corrected broken link given earlier)
> http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/
> http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/192/is-it-correct-to-use-their-instead-of-his-or-her
> 
> As for your prescription for solving this problem:
> 
> > is for the speaker to assume that the person of unknown gender is
> > the same gender as they are.
> 
> As *they* are?
> 
> Thank you for your accidental demonstration that the use of singular 
> they is a natural and unobjectionable part of English language.

Is playing gotcha REALLY necessary?

I believe singular they should not be used in formal writing. So what if
you use it in an email?