For what it's worth, in academic writing I exclusively use the singular third person masculine "he", recognized by many as gender-neutral. Many other languages do this without concern: German and Spanish come to mind.
In everyday speech I will unconsciously use singular "they". In my book, this ...
@MikeSchinkel You sure had me confused! I didn't see any links in my post! "In my book" is an expression meaning something like, "in my opinion" or "in my experience"; here a bit of both.
In Spanish it is becoming increasingly politically incorrect to use "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun. It is also wrong that Spanish does not require a pronoun at all; it does in some cases, and not in some others. The issue of sexist language, and he/she pronoun usage is currently a big controversial topic in Spanish-speaking communities.
@CesarGon: also have this problem in French speaking communities (specifically in Québec). Many (government/school) texts start with a disclaimer stating something like "Use of the masculine form is only intended to lighten the text and encompasses both genders."
Although correct ("his" and "he" are the original gender neutral pronouns) it is becoming uncommon to see this deployed in practice - with a clear swing in academic papers to deliberate use of the word "her" instead. (e.g. The interested reader should continue her studies by doing the exercises at the end of this chapter).
It drifted into common use around the time Chaucer used it in Middle English, and so was already well established when Shakespeare and the KJV used it.
"In everyday speech I will unconsciously use singular "they". In my book, this has unquestionably drifted into very common use in all but the most formal situations." On discussing the subject, it is important to distinguish between a non-specific indefinite person and a specific definite person, though many people don't seem to realize this. Please read my answer(there are two answers of mine. I mean the new one) for the detail.
@AndréCaron, I've seen this in Québec but never in France. Québec seems to want to avoid political annoyances while preserving the grammar; the French seem to put grammar above politics.
As a native speaker of a rather conservative Latin language (Portuguese), I find it ludicrous that people still debate gender politics through the prism of grammar change. It suffices to teach children that the pronoun "he" doesn't mean male (sex/gender), but means "grammatically male". In English you can use "they" because it is by default gender-neutral; in Latin languages there are no neutral plural subject pronouns (just possessive). Children just learn at school that if you have 10 boys and a girl, the subject pronoun ("eles") is (grammatically) masculine.
In my opinion, 'they' is the only acceptable choice, even in the most formal of writing. 'He' is stuffy and outdated, and 's/he' and 'he or she' are eyesores.
@LastStar007, In Latin languages, the neuter form has been "absorbed" into the masculine. Language is not as logical as we want it to be. And, on the other hand, many people/societies in many languages are not free and/or have no wish to invent pronouns as they see fit. Why should one bother with those issues if everyone learns at school that grammatical gender is different from social gender and biological sex? I'm not suggesting that English speakers do as I say, but a comparative view may open one's horizons in this debate, e.g. the answer here: qr.ae/TU1jQX
-1 for lack of supporting evidence. There is nothing that confirms the OP's statement that "he" is gender-neutral in the 21st century and is exclusively used in academic writing.
Discussion on answer by Charlie: Is t…
Discussion on answer by Charlie: Is t…