to loathe 'their' when used to mean 'his or her'?

[JoanofArgos]

I have been told by some that this is ok now.

I will never agree.

Does anyone?

I think it's fine.

I'd far rather say 'Has anyone lost their key?' than 'Has anyone lost his or her key?'.

Simpler, quicker and gets the point across perfectly adequately.

Lots of gay people use this when they talk about their partners. Just avoids coming out.

Useful when talking about an unborn baby. I've heard people referring to the baby as it and that is far worse.

Would never have occured to me that this wasn't correct, when the gender was unknown.

Which boy has lost his key?
Which child has lost their key?

My partner went to visit their mother

rather than

my partner went to visit her mother

to me sounds funny though as you know the gender of the partner so using their doesn't sound right.

It's not ideal but the best compromise as we don't have a gender-neutral third person pronoun. "his" is a bit old hat and presumptious, "his or her" is unweidly.

Incidentally, on grammar puritanism, Stephen Fry takes an interesting (and to me, surprising) stance...

Well the English language lacks a pronoun that means "his or her". As there is obviously a need for one, people have adapted a pronoun to this use. It's mainly used in colloquial speech, less so in formal writing.

Is it wrong, or is it language evolving? I guess people aren't going to agree.

And if you use "his" to refer to unborn baby -
"the baby was sucking his thumb in the scan"

everyone would assume you know its a boy, hence the need to use "their" or worse "its".

Jane Austen used it, so hardly new-fangled!

Agree with what everyone has said! I prefer to use "their" than to default to male when gender is not known.

I use it occassionally in order to avoid calling my unborn child It (we never did decide on a twee nickname), my DH being a part-time member of the grammar police, always makes some cocky comment about not realising we were having twins. Out of the two of us I'm inclined to think he's the more annoying one

Yes, not so much annoying when it's 'has everyone got their coat?', but in protracted arguments it gets confusing. In speech ok, but in writing I still think you should use 'his or her'.

E Nesbit always used 'it'!

What gender was the Psammead then? :o

I didn't even know using "their" wasn't ordinary ...

I don't have a problem with it, easier than saying "his or her" and gender neutral.