Folks, I wanted to pass on some good news, just in case you
hadn't heard: it's officially OK use 'they' in the
singular!
In other words, it is no longer grammatically necessary to
pointlessly gender a subject of a contract clause or legal fiction,
such as the skilled person or the moron in a hurry. And by 'no
longer necessary', I should of course say 'once more
unnecessary', because from the 14th to the late
19th century, nothing could have made more sense - I
mean, why force a gender onto something when you had no actual
knowledge?
Then in 1890 it was decided that "words importing the
masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females"
in Acts of Parliament, officially anointing the idea that
'he' worked fine as a generic. It doesn't though.
When someone says 'he', we imagine a man.
