The AP style book has created an uproar among the people who make a living by putting words on to (onto?) pieces of paper.
Weekly Standard – “The AP’s Pronoun Decree”
The heart of the issue, if you read to the end, is the AP decided to make “they” and “their” acceptable as a singular pronoun because of the lack of a gender neutral pronoun to describe a non-binary person – a human who is neither male nor female.
“Bill, who is non-binary, takes their lunch to work in a brown paper bag”
We do have a pronoun already for that purpose – “it”.
well, this is depressing.
a generation ago, the uproar was telling reporters we had to use ms. as a courtesy title for women, if requested. then they told us to drop all courtesy titles on second reference, even for women. (that had been the rule for men for a long time.)
the ap stylebook used to be useful (it’s where i learned to spell “restaurateur” — no “n”)) and could actually help you if you wrote yourself into a corner while your favorite editor was home sick with the flu. it was also filled with quirky bits of information which, experience had shown, reporters would eventually need at 2 in the morning. and it had a sense of humor.
When it was announced during a news brief a few days ago, I had the same reaction as Fred. In fact, I think ‘it’ should be presented as the appropriate word and -acronym- for ‘their’ separate restrooms and let ‘them’ argue otherwise.
IT = In Transition
IT = I’m Transgender
IT = Individual Trinary