[lijogdfljk]

> which is in itself certainly quite unenjoyable and certainly not something people tend to desire without a huge internal urge. Calling them "them" doesn't cost a lot (especially considering that we do this with strangers on the internet already) — why not just do it?

I don't think anyone here, including myself, is objecting to that. I'm objecting to the generic identifier being both plural and singular and can lead to confusion in contexts, as in this case.

I really don't care about the whole identification debate. It's no different to a name to me. However as is often the case i don't know what they prefer, and i don't care to look it up, i'm just trying to be generic.

[atoav]

I just thought: maybe I don't care because my first language is German and there "sie" means "they" while the formal version of "you" is "Sie".

So if you ask a stranger in German you basically end up saying the english equivalent of "could they tell me what time it is?" for a english variant of "could you tell me what time it is?"

To make things worse "sie" is not only singular and plural depending on the context, it also is the equivalent of the female pronoun "her".