Undetermined Genders and Grammar

[Jessweeee♪]

Yes, I know "they" is incorrect when talking about one person whose gender is unspecified, but it's just such a pain to constantly use "he or she"/"his or her"/etc fifty times when discussing a hypothetical situation.

Maybe from now on I will give the people in my hypothetical scenarios genders beforehand so I can still be grammatically correct without having to deal with it.

How do you feel about these situations? Are you so uptight about it that not only will you stick with it through an entire speech, but also pick apart this post for the tiniest of errors? Will you go on with your "they"s because you really couldn't give less of a smurf about grammar if you tried?

[NorthernChaosGod]

I go with a generic he.

[Rye]

For some reason, I almost always use "they" even if I know the gender of the person. If I'm not using their name, most of the time I say "They said [so and so]." Is that unusual?

[Raistlin]

I either use "they" or "he" (though I would not use the former in a formal paper).

[blackmage_nuke]

One (pronoun) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Clo]

I use one in most situations.

Go BLACKMAGE!

[Rantz]

One is okay if you're just mentioning the subject once or twice, more than that and it starts sounding kinda contrived. I mostly just either use they, or pick a gender and stick to it, sometimes including a dummy name to emphasize that it's just an example.

[Raistlin]

"One" is applicable for different circumstances, though; it is not directly interchangeable with all instances of "he/she" or "they" in sentences where the gender of a single person is unknown. I use "one" as a pronoun myself, but I don't think that answers the question.

[Jessweeee♪]

One (pronoun) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And then I sound like a pretentious little snoot

[Marshall Banana]

Not really! You just sound correct!

[Rye]

I use "one" in essays once and a while.

[Shiny]

I use one and they.

One (pronoun) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And then I sound like a pretentious little snoot

It's an essay though. You're supposed to sound like a pretentious little snoot.

[Jessweeee♪]

I wasn't talking about essays! I just mean everyday conversation or posting.

[Shiny]

Oh, then I just say they. I never actually heard someone other than Stephen Hawking say "one" while conversing.

[Marshall Banana]

"Someone?"