[Kiddiss]

People have been using "they" as their preferred pronoun since before I started school. I started around the time that the education system in the US was changing thanks to the nationalization of government rule over education (I could ne wrong, but I believe he U.S. Board of Education started under the Carter Administration). Older teachers were very, very strict about "proper" grammatical use of pronouns, whilst younger/newer teachers were more lax. I also (as a Navy Brat) went to several elementary schools, three Jr. High/Middle schools, and three Sr. High schools... from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and right in the middle of the U.S. I noticed that the further west we moved, the easier my schools were (I started in VA, then GA, TN, and was in CA for the end of elementary and beginning of Jr. High. I started Sr. High in TX, and moved back to CA the second semester of my Sophomore year. I moved to a different county my Jr. year and finished Sr. High by the beach. That was the easiest of the three high schools - and after my whirlwind schooling across the U.S., I can definitely say that the "Bible Belt" schools were the strictest as far as all classes went, but especially English. If you didn't assign a singular pronoun when speaking or writing about a single person, even the math teachers would correct you Ô_Õ In CA, the teachers didn't really seem to give a shit. Same thing at the university which I attended- which is kinda sad considering it was a private school supposedly on par with "Ivy League" universities. I guess that it has come to a point where it is not only socially, but scholarly acceptable to refer to one person as "they". My own personal bellied is that it is because "they" is the most politically correct word to use. I wish I could remember in which story there was actually a non-gender specific pronoun used (Brave New World, perhaps?). I think that with as much gender ambiguity we have in Western culture, a non-gender specific pronoun should be taught in schools, rather than propagate improper grammar. It's not like new words aren't being added to the English language at an ever-imcreasing rate with the computer world the way it is. Is it offensive to people to want a gender-neutral pronoun? Is it something you folks would welcome in our modern language, or is it too intrusive to want a proper replacement for the use of "they"?
We are living in a culture that is more open to gender-bender roles than any other in history (if you think the Greeks were as open, I disagree. They were primarily homosexual - heterosexual was mainly for procreation, not recreation). As that is the case, I believe we should have a non-gender specific pronoun to use, if nothing else, for the sake of being polite- especially online where gender only exists when/if a person decides to assign one to one's self.
Oh, heh, I forgot to warn you guys that my "title" on a couple of avatar sites is "Queen of the Wall 'o Text" *smile* (Arikana & Pink Pantzer will back me up on that ^_~ )