Do you also believe we should revert “you” to “thou,” “you,” and “ye?” Because “you” has the exact same problem (gender-neutral, used for both singular and plural cases), but most people seem to struggle through it just fine. (inb4 “y’all” or “yinz,” which are acceptable in their respective dialects but don’t seem to be making progress in universal usage).
I didn’t take a position on what balance between convenience vs ambiguity we should strike, it’s always context-dependent. That said, second-person pronouns like “you” tend to be significantly less ambiguous than third-person pronouns. Because you generally know who is talking to you directly (see what I did there?) whereas “they” can potentially refer to anyone in the world.
Do you also believe we should revert “you” to “thou,” “you,” and “ye?” Because “you” has the exact same problem (gender-neutral, used for both singular and plural cases), but most people seem to struggle through it just fine. (inb4 “y’all” or “yinz,” which are acceptable in their respective dialects but don’t seem to be making progress in universal usage).
I didn’t take a position on what balance between convenience vs ambiguity we should strike, it’s always context-dependent. That said, second-person pronouns like “you” tend to be significantly less ambiguous than third-person pronouns. Because you generally know who is talking to you directly (see what I did there?) whereas “they” can potentially refer to anyone in the world.