I disagree. Singular they/their has been used by educated people in a formal register for a long time. In fact, I have a copy of a British passport application that uses it in that sense. I prefer it sometimes and intend to keep using it. Grammatical rules are fluid and prescriptivists who think they are not can have a stifling effect on discussions and even distort people's perceptions of some groups within a society based on some perceived error in the way they speak. For an encyclopaedic style, all that matters is whether a significant number of educated, native speakers would find a particular usage acceptable. Proscriptions on split infinitives, terminating sentences with preposition and other poor grammar are for another age.  09:19, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)