I’m kidding.
No one ever said it would be easy. People give advice to make “it” (nearly anything) less difficult. But no one told me running would be easy and many tried to warn me about how difficult writing could be.
But they (whoever the heck “they” are) also could never have fully conveyed the joy I have found in both.
So there.
No, it won’t be easy, but yes, it will be worth it!
I’m old. Back in my day (do I sound like your grandfather yet) we did our best to be inclusive by using he/she and him/her or, if we were cool, s/he. Using “they” to convey a singular pronoun was considered poor grammar. We looked down our noses at folks who said, “If a person wants a banana, they just have to ask for it.” Nopety. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Times have changed.
Dennis Baron, Professor of English and linguistics at University of Illinois explains in his blog article A Brief History of Singular ‘they’ declares, “Singular they has become the pronoun of choice to replace he and she . . . .” He also explains how that came to be.
It still stops me cold when I see it in print, but I’m trying to adapt. What say you?
