Facebook has adopted the singular 'their' for describing friend activity to users in their news feeds. This is despite the fact that Facebook has gender information for each user, and could easily tailor the messages to the gender of the user being described.

I give up.

Facebook's market power and communicative ability is simply too great for me to fight against. I would have preferred a different gender-neutral singular pronoun, but it looks like the masses have spoken.

It is a sad day in Grillickdom.

Ehn. Big hairy eyeballing deal. "They" as a gender non-specific pronoun has been in use for ages. People have also been trying to invent a different gender-neutral pronoun for at least 150 years, to no avail. "They" works.

This illustrates my point perfectly, though it reaches the wrong conclusion. It starts from a false premise and leads to a false conclusion. In days of yore, "you" was a plural second-person pronoun. Its singular counterpart was "thee." "Thee" has fallen into disfavor, and "you" has moved in to fill the gap. Unfortunately, as a result, it is often unclear whether a speaker is referring to an individual or a group. This has led to situations where people say things like "you, collectively," (I'm the only person I know who actually uses this phrase regularly) "y'all," "you guys," and "youse."

Clearly "you" as a second-person singular and plural is inadequate for many speakers.

With the third-person, the problem is not analogous. Rather than having an old gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun that has grown into disfavor (though arguably that pronoun is "he," "he" had a very brief life as a truly gender-neutral pronoun. In actuality, "he" was for ages a masculine pronoun reflecting the general assumption that it would never be necessary to speak about both women and men together at once in the abstract. Only for a brief period in the twentieth century was "he" used as a gender-neutral pronoun), we have never had a need for such a pronoun before.

Still, it is arguable that the situations are analogous, and that the creation of this vacuum (even if it was created by expanding the need for words rather than an old word falling out of favor) would naturally lead to the plural form falling into it to serve both purposes. Unfortunately, as we have seen with "you," this will not adequately solve the problem. There is a real need for different terms to mark singular and plural. Moving "they" into the singular will necessarily (in time) lead to the creation of words such as "they, collectively" (probably only used by me), "th'all," "they guys," and "theys."

This is why I've been fighting against "they" falling into the singular gap. Keeping the gap open will allow something else to fill it in over time, while keeping "they" in its place. This would make the job of students centuries in the future easier, as they will not need to decipher familiar words used in unfamiliar manners.

I never have had any problem with the use of "you" for both singular and plural. It's usually pretty obvious from context. Language isn't computer programming. The human brain is comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity. Even French, which has both "tu" and "vous" isn't completely clear-cut because "vous" can mean either "you plural" or "you singular formal".

Fixed.

I must admit, I've never had a problem with use of 'them' to refer to a hypothetical or unknown person. But when it's used to refer to an actual specific person whose identity is known, then it jars horribly (even on the rare occasions where that person's gender is unknown).

I'd love to say "I told you so", but this has been in the mix for literally centuries. As I said before, it already happened, now everyone's actually just putting into motion what the masses decided years ago was the appropriate option. We are now moving towards a society that is (very slowly) realising that we don't actually need to mark gender at every goddamn opportunity (which we honestly don't).

I for one applaud Facebook for bowing to the inevitable. Also, admittedly, the fact that there are so many people on facebook who have chosen not to specify their gender has probably accelerated this change, which is probably related to the fact that the queer community has been moving onto Facebook in droves...

Like Axel, I still find it terribly jarring when Facebook tells me that my friend Rachel has changed their profile picture, or that Katrina has responded to a post on their wall, or that David has updated their status.

And I will continue to complain about that usage, and to maintain that I am objectively correct to do so. When I complain about the use of "they" for a singular entity of unspecified gender, I can at least admit that I am not objectively correct to complain about it.

Even if I still think I'm right that a new word (should one arise in the normal course) is preferable. Like I said, we'll have to come up with a replacement plural in time, anyway.

Also, considering that Facebook is a setting that literally allows people to select their gender, I would have loved to have the news feed refer to people who refused to select one as "it."

But I know that would never fly. You people all thinking you're better than walls, buildings, plants and things.

I wonder how this will fly with the Militant Grammarians of Massachusetts.

If the user has specified a gender, Facebook should use it to select the right pronoun, says I, but I've no problem with "they" for the singular third-person pronoun of indeterminate gender (although I agree that "it" would be a lot more entertaining). I used to be a lot more annoyed by the use of the term "they" in this way, but over time I've decided I just don't care that much. I'm going to devote my energies instead towards the fight against sentences ending with prepositions. That is something up with which I will not put!

I thought that "rule" was just something a 19th Century pastor pulled out of his arse.

It's a legitimate issue if you're trying to write things to be translated into other languages, particularly Latin. The same but more so with split infinitives. That one's far trickier as there is no facility for that concept at all in many languages.

There, fixed.

Prepositions at the end of a sentence and split infinitives only confuse incompetent translators, not translators who are well-versed in both languages at issue.

"They" to mean "singular of unestablished gender" is canon now? *gasp!*

Eeeehhh, this doesn't bother me. In this time of extreme social change I'm not surprised that third person pronouns are slowly being cut off from gender. I can see why "it" isn't used what with its connection to inanimate objects. And I can see why we need pronouns to express both unknown gender AND genderlessness even in the event of gender being known. We've changed things up grammatically due to social change before. For instance, Ms. came along specifically separate a woman's title from her marriage status. Unlike many languages, we already have genderless plurals. So why not cut off pronouns from gender completely?

Of course, in a perfect world we'd simply create a new pronoun like we created a new Female title rather than co-opting our genderless plurals. But c'est la vie. Language is ever-changing, including its grammar. And heck, we've already seen this happen before. In a few hundred years singular third person will be just as quaint as "thee," "thy" and "thine" used in second person singular/informal. How many grammar curmudgeons of the past shuddered when the second person formal/plural "you," "your" and "yours" was co-opted for second person singular as well? And can you imagine historical romances using "hers" and "his" sprinkled in with the speech of that present to give the movie or book the feel of historical legitimacy?

As the language in question was Latin, I don't consider that refinement of the point to be very serious.

The more so because English already leaves off the gender of nouns. Is chair masculine? Is table feminine? Foreign kids learn, but we skip sex education.