Here's from the OED entry for "they."

   2. Often used in reference to a singular noun made universal by every, any, no, etc., or applicable to one of either sex (= 'he or she').
  See Jespersen Progress in Lang. §24.
1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 163b, Yf..a psalme scape ony persone, or a lesson, or else yt they omyt one verse or twayne. 1535 FISHER Ways perf. Relig. ix. Wks. (1876) 383 He neuer forsaketh any creature vnlesse they before haue forsaken them selues. 1749 FIELDING Tom Jones VIII. xi, Every Body fell a laughing, as how could they help it. 1759 CHESTERFIELD Lett. IV. ccclv. 170 If a person is born of a..gloomy temper..they cannot help it. 1835 WHEWELL in Life (1881) 173 Nobody can deprive us of the Church, if they would. 1858 BAGEHOT Lit. Stud. (1879) II. 206 Nobody fancies for a moment that they are reading about anything beyond the pale of ordinary propriety. 1866 RUSKIN Crown Wild Olives §38 (1873) 44 Now, nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing. 1874 [see THEMSELVES 5].

Examples going back to the early 16th c.  Of course, that was several centuries after English borrowed the word from Old Norse, but then what did those Vikings know from agreement?

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brett Reynolds
Sent: 2009-08-17 20:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: If I were the language god...
Importance: Low

On 17-Aug-09, at 7:16 PM, Assembly for the Teaching of English  
Grammar wrote:

> It used to be always accepted to use the masculine pronoun when  
> referring to groups, but modern political correctness and inclusion  
> has made that harder to do.

It has nothing to do with political correctness, and everything to do  
with the fact that that's the way it is in English. As Mark Liberman  
writes, "singular they has routinely been used throughout the history  
of English, by all the best writers, until certain subcases were  
artificially turned into 'errors' by self-appointed experts.  
Successively less discriminating pseudo-authorities then generalized  
the proscription in successively sillier ways, although they have  
largely been ignored by the users of the language."

Similarly, Merriam Webster's online dictionary has this to say. "The  
use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite  
gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and  
writing, even in literary and formal contexts."

There is no evidence that anybody thought twice about this until the  
mid 1700s when Ann Fisher wrote, "The Masculine Person answers to the  
general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, any Person  
who knows what he says."

> Pronoun/antecedent agreement is what it is.

But 'they' is not always plural, just the way 'you' isn't, so there  
is no agreement problem.

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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