The loss of gendered words in English has been gradual, but lately has accelerated with the singular "they."

Gendered references in English currently persist, but unevenly.

Many occupational names have been degendered in English, while others remain.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Bill Gorton asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” Mike replies: “Gradually and then suddenly.”

This exchange came to mind when thinking about how English is losing its gender markers: It’s been going on for centuries, in fits and starts, but has accelerated rapidly during the past couple of decades.

Gradual Grammatical Change

As a Germanic language, the form of English spoken a thousand years ago had three genders, and these dictated the grammatically correct forms of articles, pronouns, and adjectives.

But during the next two centuries—partly through contact with Old Norse, and partly through the adoption of French terms treated as gender-neutral—English gradually lost this system. By about 1300, the speakers of what we call Middle English were employing a language that was grammatically simpler—much less tied to gender, and much more like modern English.

We are now experiencing a much more rapid shift in usage, driven by advocacy for gender equality and nonbinary acceptance. The most obvious example is the adoption of the singular "they" to replace clunky constructions like "he or she" and “he/she.”

Language purists argue that this is ungrammatical, even though "they" has been employed in just this way by authors as diverse as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Dickinson, and........

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