Oh, come off it. The vast majority of people in tech are male. It's a good statistical bet that referring to an unknown techie as such will be correct. Saying "she" by default is silly, but men just don't complain about it. "They" is awkward and imprecise, and "xe" is retarded. If you're offended by someone referring to you as "he", simply correct them. Or, you know, try not getting offended by stupid minutiae.

If we're going to have a grammar flame, then using "They" for the first-person singular of indeterminate gender has wide usage & goes back a long, long way.

Personally, I'd far rather people use "They" than drop people in the "male" box because they can't be bothered to find out the gender of the person they're referring to.

This argument about 'they' being acceptable seems to have become extremely popular in the last couple months (or maybe I just didn't notice it before then). I find it to be unconvincing at best.

I think that "aks"[1] instead of "ask" has wide usage and goes back a long, long way and yet I suspect that if you here someone say or write "Let me aks you a question" you would think they were completely wrong.

Just because Shakespeare used a word a certain way doesn't mean that it's usage is acceptable.

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aks

Singular they has seen wide use for centuries starting with Chaucer and picking up Lewis Carroll, Walt Whitman, George Eliot, Shakespeare, William Thackeray, Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde along the way (list shamelessly stolen from http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-th... ).

If you've only noticed it in the last few months then I suggest that you've not been looking hard enough!

The point of my comment was that I am certain that if you look hard enough you will find any number of nonstandard constructions that you would reject, despite it being included in Chaucer and Shakespeare.

I was already well aware of it's long historical usage, I simply would only rarely see someone say "Chaucer used it, therefore it's fine to use on a resume!" The spelling "aks" for "ask" is one such example that you could find nearly as many high profile historical usages, and no one argues that it is an acceptable spelling.

(Also half that list is exactly the kind of people that you would find an enormous amount of nonstandard usages; Chaucer is Middle English, Shakespeare was famous for writing in common vernacular, Lewis Carroll is famous for his literary nonsense and wordplay; hardly the best sources for what would be included in 'high' English)

Did you read the rest of the blogpost I referred to? Alternatively, Language Log has a whole category assigned to the use of singular they: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27

English is defined by usage; Singular they has very widespread use from the time of Chaucer to the present day. Only mad grammatical prescriptivists object to it :)

I love that you'd rather be precise but wrong than imprecise but correct.

I'm fine with a solution that is elegant and works perfectly well 95% of the time, rather than one which is clumsy and works sort of well 100% of the time.

I also love that you think reinforcing biases and helping to keep women out of the field qualifies as working "perfectly well". Perfectly well for you, I guess.

Say, I've noticed that most of the time when somebody argues vigorously in favor of some sexist behavior, they're a misogynist asshole. I'm sure you won't mind if I assume that describes you as well, right?

Feel free to believe whatever you want; I long ago learned not to argue with fanatics on the internet.