From Donna Galley
Your article about the lack of suitable non-gendered third person pronouns and the neologisms various sub-cultures employ as substitutes (5 January, p 7) ignored the simplest solution of all. I have noticed a growing prevalence, at least in written essays, of substituting the plural form of the pronoun for the singular. In much the same manner as thou and thine have long since been replaced by you and yours, he/she becomes “they”, his/her becomes “their”.
In closer circles of course, he and she preserve the same function as the French tu: my friend may be “he” or “she”, but my colleague is “they”. In papers where the use of first and second person pronouns are already discouraged, the third person neutral plural becomes an easily assimilated non-gender alternative.
Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia
