[arcb]

You're definitely on to something. Sweden's working on a neutral pronoun.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01...

To respond to the point on recognizing when to use honorifics - various languages around the world conjugate singular third person honorifics to a plural verb, and that's what I was referring to.

I wrote the article and will happily claim it's flawed - it tries to take on an old, deep problem with not too many clear outs. It also tries to focus on a specific problem many institutions around the world have with unnecessary bias invoking writing styles. It tries to provide options that can be used practically, while understanding trade-offs.

[arcb]

Additionally, this article does a good job of articulating the case for using 'they':

http://www.copyediting.com/epicene-they-gaining-greater-acce...