Singular ‘They’ Is Word of the Year
My native language doesn&#x27;t have gendered pronouns, and it is surprisingly difficult to learn to fluently and effortlessly use &#x27;he&#x27; (or &#x27;she&#x27;) in English in situations when there is no need to specify the gender, or when the gender is not known (&quot;After the user clicks the button, he&#x2F;she receives ...&quot;). My brain is just not wired that way, I feel like I am forced to create information when there is none, and potentially incorrect information, lies.<p>Almost as if a language didn&#x27;t have a construct to talk about cars without specifying their color at the same time, so you all the time have to create random colors in order to talk about cars in the abstract.<p>I was very happy when I learned that &#x27;they&#x27; is a mostly acceptable solution.<p>I understand gendered nouns can also be a politically loaded topic, but I only meant this as a perspective from someone who learned English as a second language.