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“It” is not used here because we don’t know the gender. Consider “Who is she?” for example, which is a very different question.
> "It was Bob!"
Why wouldn’t we say “He was Bob!” in this case, since the gender is presumably known? Because “He was Bob” and “It was Bob” mean completely different things.
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...
According to your article, because the name of the actual person, Gustave Eiffel, is known the correct form of address is "Gustave Eiffel". Otherwise, no reader really knows who or how many people "they" references.
> Amazingly cool that it understood it had to make the statue handle winds in the harbor.
Example: "If a person wishes to avoid jail, they would be wise not to commit crimes."
No other word except the gross "he/she" construction makes grammatical sense in lieu of "they".
Not exactly. "They" is not commonly recognized as singlular. While "they" has occasionally been used as a singular in certain instances for at least 700 years, those cases are generally isolated and are considered poor uses of the language.
"It" and "one" are both third-person personal pronouns that are gender neutral. "It" is far from the only gender neutral singular pronoun.
> EG, when someone calls, or is at the door, people often ask "Who is it?"
"Who" is an interrogative pronoun in your sentence, "who is it?" Who is gender neutral but does not have the power to be singular or plural, since it is interrogative.
Sorry? ‘They’ is universally recognised as a third-person plural pronoun, and as such it is the standard way to refer to a group of people in English. That it is additionally used as a gender-neutral singular animate pronoun does not change this. If you consider ‘they’ to be non-plural, I would be very interested to know exactly what you do consider to qualify as a third-person plural pronoun in English.
The "singular they" has been in use since the 1300s.
https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...
> "They" is not commonly recognized as singlular.
Personally, I’d say that ‘they’ can act as both a third person animate singular and a third person gender-neutral plural pronoun, in just the same way that ‘you’ is both a second-person singular and second-personal plural pronoun. True, the singular usage of ‘they’ isn’t quite as common as the plural usage, but as a native English speaker I’ve never seen singular ‘they’ as particularly unusual.
That being said, what I meant by uncommon use is that there are many more people who do not use they as singular compared to those who do. This isn't a value judgement, and languages evolve. The commonly cited OED article is simply a recognition that languages change. I am saying that the singular they is not the common use of the word.
I do accept your point here, but I think even this is debatable. Certainly, there is a population which vociferously denies the validity of singular ‘they’… but are they truly a majority? It’s really hard to know. Personally, I found that usage so natural, I don’t recall even noticing it until it was pointed out to me.
"Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Could you
please let them know where they can get it?"
"The patient should be told at the outset how much they
will be required to pay."
"But a journalist should not be forced to reveal their
sources."[1]
I think some people are getting caught up in the mistaken belief that I am being political, when I am talking about writing in understandable sentences.
This is on Merriam-Webster's page on the singular they. "In an 1881 letter, Emily Dickinson wrote 'Almost anyone under the circumstances would have doubted if [the letter] were theirs, or indeed if they were themself.' People have used singular 'they' to describe someone whose gender is unknown for a long time, but the nonbinary use of 'they' is relatively new." [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31785507#31795771
[3] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbi...