A Campaign for They
Here's the deal: We need a gender-neutral third person pronoun. I am tired of all the awkward constructions I have to concoct to use his or her in a grammatically correct and gender neutral fashion.
I fully support the use of "they" and "their" as singular third-person pronouns, as in "Each person should bring their pencil" rather than "Each person should bring his or her pencil." Unfortunately, this is not correct grammar today, so I just spent a few hours purging they's and their's from a draft novel. However, English is a language that has always been open-source and bottom-up (in contrast to French). Usages such as this tend to work their way into the language, as dictionary writers for the English language have generally considered themselves catalogers of the English-that-is rather than dictators of the English-that-should-be (the book the Professor and the Madman is highly recommended).
XKCD took on this topic a while back.
"We need a gender-neutral third person pronoun": assuming that you mean sex-neutral, we had one until a few years ago. It was he/him/his. Those pronouns did not necessarily refer to the male sex. Then politicised women - whether from ignorance or deceit - declared that they did. I blame you Americans myself.
I'm sorry to hear that you purged they/their from your novel. What I would've done is simply have a note in the beginning of your book stating what your post just stated, and simply used they/their instead of bowing to the grammar nazis.
Ummmm....singular "they" might not be accepted by ALL Strunk&White nazis, but it is UNQUESTIONABLY grammatical.
As it says on the Language Log, under
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003572.html
"Singular they": God said it, I believe it, that settles it
Some examples given from the King James version of the Bible:
Matt. 18:35: So likewise shall my heauenly Father doe also vnto you, if yee from your hearts forgiue not euery one his brother their trespasses.
Phl. 2:3: Let nothing bee done through strife, or vaine glory, but in lowlinesse of minde let each esteeme other better then themselues.
Numbers 2:34: And the children of Israel did according to all that the LORD commanded Moses: so they pitched by their standards, and so they set forward, every one after their families, according to the house of their fathers.
Numbers 15:12: According to the number that yee shall prepare, so shall yee doe to euery one, according to their number.
2 Kings 14:12: And Iudah was put to the worse before Israel, and they fled euery man to their tents.
Ha, the next thing you'll be asking for is for "you" to be usable as an informal singular. Like that would ever happen!
We already have one. "It" works quite nicely. Everyone should bring it's pencil to the test.
You've got a feral apostrophe there, Jim.