death to singular 'they'

[fox]

'Note that if a child did not use the SDG [speaker's direction of gaze] strategy, they would be thrown back on the alternative, namely, assuming that a novel word uttered by a speaker refers to the object that they (the listener) are currently looking at.' from "Do Children with Autism Use the Speaker's Direction of Gaze Strategy to Crack the Code of Language?", by Simon Baron-Cohen, Dare A. Baldwin, and Mary Crowson, in Child Development, February 1997, 68(1), 48-57.

a child ... they. the listener are. can y'all hear me gouging my eyes out over here?

[eta: especially when there already is a plural antecedent! don't they see the confusion this can cause?! 'Parents do not announce to their infant, "look where I look when I utter a novel word" (because they wouldn't understand this anyway) ...']

answer me this: what the hell would have been wrong, in this context, with "if children did not use the SDG, they would be thrown back on the alternative, namely, assuming that a novel word uttered by a speaker refers [actually i'd prefer 'referred'] to the object that they (the listeners) are ['were'] currently looking at"? what?!

Comments

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

the fact that jane austen did it doesn't make it right. :-) or, more accurately, the fact that jane austen did it doesn't mean i have to like it, do it, or admit that it's not clunky as all living fuck -- in fact, actually misleading -- in a sentence like 'Parents do not announce to their infant, "look where I look when I utter a novel word" (because they wouldn't understand this anyway)'.

i continue to maintain that there's no excuse for using singular 'they' when a plural antecedent was possible.