Okay, so here’s where my writing nerdiness comes out. (Even if you can’t tell from the quality of my writing on this blog.)

Off the Kuff has a post discussing his belief that “they” and “their” should be accepted as valid, gender-neutral forms of singular pronouns. In responding to grammarians’ dislike of such a proposal, Kuff writes:

Far as I’m concerned, they can take their irk and stick it, along with every silly attempt at inventing a new word no one will ever use, where the sun don’t shine. If you want to be technical, an invented word like “hu”, which last I checked ain’t in the dictionary, is also a grammatical error, so what’s the difference? I say the market has spoken, and it has decided that “they” and “them” (and “their”, too) can be singular as well as plural. Deal with it.

I, of course, disagree, though, if anywhere in the post he implies that grammarians aren’t the best people in the world (I mean, aren’t my favorite people in the world), then I agree with that point.

I also agree that substituting current policy (which accepts “he or she” and “his and her” among other variations) with the use of a “hu” pronoun just seems completely ridiculous. For instance, if it’s pronounced “huh,” it seems like that would cause quite a bit of confusion at speaking events. (In fact, it’d make us all look like President Bush.)

So, anyway, there’s a little discussion going on in the comments, into which I’ve entered. Add your thoughts.