Serious Thoughts: The Gender Nuetral Pronoun is for Everyone

For an English major, I'm remarkably chill about grammar. I've blogged about this before. I don't really care about spelling and who and whom and things like that, but one thing I really don't care about is subject verb agreement. Lemme explain what I mean: as a chill English major, I feel it is my sworn duty to address the gender neutral pronoun issue in the English language.

In case you're unfamiliar with the gender neutral pronoun debacle, it comes down to this: the burrito eater must realize that they will become a burrito. Did you see anything wrong with that sentence? If no, congratulations: you have successfully internalized the descriptive trend towards gender neutral pronouns in English.  If you're a prescriptivist, this makes your brain EXPLODE. Someone with a more prescriptive attitude towards grammar would probably tell you that this sentence is incorrect because "eater" is singular whereas "they" is plural.

Technically, the most grammatically correct thing to do would be to say one of three things:

The burrito eater must realize that he will become a burrito.

OR

The burrito eater must realize that he/she will become a burrito.

OR

The burrito eater must realize that it will become a burrito.

If you ask me, that's DUMB. There's only one thing I hate more than using masculine pronouns to refer to the entire human race and it's he/she. I mean, come on. That's such a bulky, awkward way to phrase it. Plus, it's impossible to say that out loud without sounding like you have oatmeal for brains. Are you going to walk around saying things like "a good burrito monster protects his/her burrito"? His/her? That's embarrassing. You're a straight up disgrace to the English language.

Of course, the alternatives are equally bad. I refuse to entertain the notion of continuing to use he when referring to a potentially mixed-gender group -- like, I don't know, the human race for instance. That's so sexist on so, so many levels. The third solution I gave is to say "it" instead of "he" or "she." Grammatically, that's correct, but, let's be real, most people are going to be PRETTY offended if you refer to them as "it." Like, that's a good way to get beaten up.

What does that mean? It means that the gender neutral pronoun their should be acceptable in every day speech as well as in writing, both formal and otherwise. For those prescriptivists out there, I know this is hard for you, but the word selfie is now in the Oxford English Dictionary. You'll survive.

Just sayin'