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Is there such a thing as the generic pronoun anymore? I am not starting a fight—I just want to know about this to teach in class.

I just saw an article on Demi Lovato that used the pronouns “their” and “they are” to refer to the singer. Ok—I understand using it in this specific instance for gender issues. But will a sentence like this be considered correct nowadays:

Each student should bring their book.

It should be

Each student should bring his book. OR Each student should bring his or her book.

So if in a paper, not even about gender issues or people, uses “their” as a singular pronoun, should we just leave it alone now?

Matt Butcher
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    Aside from gender issues, using they/their/them as a singular pronoun is entirely acceptable nowadays in English, provided the speaker doesn't know the gender of the person whose pronoun they're saying. So you can say (as you probly would anyway, without noticing it) Somebody left their phone on the landing. – John Lawler Dec 26 '21 at 21:23
  • Note the proviso John includes. One shouldn't use say 'Glenn Miller lost their life in an air crash'. Of course, there is a grey area with gender-neutral names like Everest, Frankie, Skyler (if you don't know the referent) ... and with names (perhaps foreign) you're meeting for the first time. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 27 '21 at 12:21

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