[justwalt]

This is completely tangential to your point, but why did you choose to use “she” as the pronoun in your last sentence? I see this more and more frequently, and I assume it has something to do with being more inclusive (so as not to imply only a man could be the subject), but I don’t want to assume. Why not use “they” instead?

[gunfighthacksaw]

I forget if it was Tanenbaum’s OS book or Spivak’s calculus book, but they made a point to switch up the pronouns often which was pretty fun to read.

The singular they is probably preferable, but can start to feel ‘clinical’ if it’s the only pronoun you ever see for an entire textbook.

[mahogany]

I doubt you would have noticed -- at least not enough to stop and make a comment -- if "he" was chosen instead. Why not throw in some extra flavor (and sure, inclusivity too) to your writing and make a woman the subject from time to time?

[hintymad]

No particular reason. I thought "she" was the polite pronoun to use to refer to a single person. In fact, not knowing how to use a gender-neutral pronoun puzzles me to no end. Otherwise, I'm all ears for the correct usage.

[Clubber]

>If she can, then I don't see any issue at all.

>Why not use “they” instead?

It's been 30 years since I've studied formal writing in earnest, but "they," is, or at least was, grammatically incorrect in that sentence, unless you are referring to more than one person. English doesn't have a proper gender neutral singular pronoun. People have bastardized "they" to fit that role though because they don't know the gender, or because changing social and cultural pressures.

https://style.mla.org/using-singular-they/

[pwinnski]

They as a singular gender-neutral pronoun is far, far older than 30 years[0], so while I believe that you were taught that, you were taught incorrectly. So was I!

It is neither a bastardization, nor grammatically incorrect, to use they as a singular gender-neutral pronoun.

0. https://www.academicwritingsuccess.com/the-astonishing-histo...

[Clubber]

Interesting history. According to that article, using "they," as a singular pronoun was improper from 1745 until 2015. It depends on who you ask of course but had I used singular "they," in a paper, I would have lost a letter grade for each occurrence. My Literature teachers didn't mess around.

PS: I enjoyed the use of the old style footnote. We were just getting out of that notation into inline references when I was taught.

[erik_seaberg]

Most of the style guides under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_an... discourage it; one found 82% disapproval from their panel of specialists. Anyone using it needs to expect that kind of judgment.

[drdeca]

My understanding is that while there are certainly changing social and cultural pressures which influence how often people use they in the singular, or at the least, increasing how likely some are to use it (possibly decreasing how likely others are to?),

that using “they” as singular was not at all unheard of. It is quite plausible that the sources I am remembering were somewhat over-representing how common it was (they certainly would have motivation to do so, in relation to the changing social pressures that you mentioned), but my impression is still that for a long while, it was not especially unusual for people to use it without meaning to make (and without being perceived to be making) any kind of statement about gender/sex, though it may have been (idk) the clear consensus that it was “technically incorrect usage”.

Furthermore, my impression (I could be wrong) is that while using a singular “they” to refer to a person whose sex/gender was unknown, was not that strange, it would have been fairly odd for someone to use singular “they” in the case where the speaker does know the sex/gender of the person in question, and that this is something which has changed substantially more of late due to changing social pressures etc. (compared to the use when the gender/sex is unknown).

I should note that I have not looked into this closely, and any parts which I have I could have forgotten, and therefore these are only the impressions I have, which could be wrong, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

[dragonwriter]

> It's been 30 years since I've studied formal writing in earnest, but "they," is, or at least was, grammatically incorrect in that sentence, unless you are referring to more than one person.

It is incorrect, as is “her” both times used in the preceding sentence, but not because of number of the referent (a sibling comment addresses “they” and its long-established singular use, but that's not actually relevant here.) Rather, “her” is incorrect because the possessive pronoun that corresponds to the “one” used in the earlier clause of the same sentence and with which “her” shares a referent is “one’s”, not “her”. And “she” is incorrect because it has, again, the same referent as the subject pronoun “one” in the preceding sentence, and therefore should use the same subject pronoun.

> English doesn't have a proper gender neutral singular pronoun.

Leaving aside whether it does for a known, specific referent, it absolutely does for an generic referent, and it was even properly used in one of four places the same generic referent was referred to using a pronoun in the last two sentences of the post: “one (subject)/one (object)/one’s (possessive)”.

[pessimizer]

If you're talking about a class of people, it's not really a forced application.

e.g. "If people can, then I don't see any issue at all" as opposed to "If a person can, than I don't see any issue at all." There's nothing wrong with either.

[zabzonk]

I think it is grammatical, though it may change the semantics. OTOH:

> can one choose to use her time at her own will?

changing to:

can one choose to use they time at they own will?

is nothing like English. You could of course use "their", but that has a kind of distancing effect.