'When an employer changes their mind.'

Can I, um, be forgiven for wondering if this employer has multiple personalities?

'And every listener interprets these signals in their own way.'

Humph! More split personalities!
A blatant (and banal) exercise in (faceless) nihilism.

(We all know that language is a growing and changing thing [a process, actually, more than a thing?], which is all well and good; but it is yet best if it is rational.)

So language is more than just words. For example are the two individuals in the cartoon male and female? which one is male, which one is female? Are they both male or both female? Does it matter to the conversation at hand?

I knew that some fellow would trot out Chaucer and all those intervening years. That only goes to shew that sloppy (and non-rational) English is nothing new. I don't recall having heard this usage in my youth. I believe that it has become really smart, chic, and oh-so-fashionable in recent years because we are evolving (have evolved?) into a society that likes to pretend that gender doesn't exist (except for the inconvenient need to procreate), nor do we wish to ruffle the feathers (or disturb the chips on shoulders) of feminists. Some things that have been around for 600 years are worth keeping. Others aren't. This singular plural is one of the latter - it always sounds stupid, and always is irrational. If you don't want to say 'he', etc., then say 'she', etc. It's really quite simple. If you want to use a plural pronoun, then use a plural subject. It could'nt be simpler nor make better sense. Using parallel fifths doesn't make me into a Bach. Nor does using the singular plural make you into a Chaucer.

And, so that we end with ryand's debate about icti, let it be added that just because the mighty ictus preoccupied some minds for the better part of the XXth century is no reason for us to conclude that it is applicable (or even real) for all time. We've already outgrown any claim to existence that it ever had. (Ha! Come to think of it, Chaucer never heard an ictus!)

How did your interview turn out, ryand?

Good luck to you. You are facing significant but also exciting challenges.

[edited]

Regarding the singular they I try to:
1. Uphold the robustness principle.
2. Remember my audience.

The "rules" of agreement that many of us were taught in school are of fairly late development in English; they are not especially deeply rooted. It's not surprising that they are not necessarily the most enduring. In terms of common usage, at least in the USA, the ship has already sailed.

I don't have grand mal or anything over the singular "they", (I try to limit myself to minor conniptions and intermittent pearl clutching,) but I am noticing more and more, that when the subject is known and a specific person and in posession of XY chromosomes, MORE & MORE PEOPLE ARE USING THE SINGULAR "THEY" ANYWAY.
Excuse me, I seem to have gotten over-excited, I'll just recline here on my fainting couch for the nonce.

Uphold the robustness principle.

Dare I ask?
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

I ain't never heard no rule about singular deys.

What really gets my goat is when today's communion is sung "let them take up their cross and humble themselves" instead of "themself". I see I really made the spell-corrector mad there.

Oh? I guess that's as in, 'If anyone will come after me, let them deny themself and take up their cross ... ' At least "themself" has a long history, all the way back to the 14th century, recently revived in this age of gender neutralization.

A supervisor in one language program was a widely published linguist, and she said that we tend to say we are descriptivists, but are actually prescriptivists. That is, most people think that it sounds priggish to say what MUST be done, and so we proudly only offer our judgment of what is actually used. The problem being that we choose among what is used, and so instantly go back to prescribing.

This is what I teach, and I think Adam's guide is fine--remember your audience. Austen used it, and she is pretty much my arbiter for modern grammar. Fowler allowed it in Modern English Usage. It's only sloppy if language is literal, and it isn't. It's functional, and we hit places where literalness doesn't quite do the job. That's true of all languages, and I can function to one degree or other in most modern descendants of Latin. I used to ask my students, "Are human beings simple or complicated?" "Complicated," they would invariably say, with varying degrees of exasperation. "So," I would explain, "language must be complicated, too."

I will say, as an English teacher for many years, the impersonal they has been around for a long time, will be around for a long time, and is unobjectionable. I use it all the time--per Adam, depending on the audience.

Kenneth

I shared an office with the other stereotypical version: thin and ascetic, rather birdlike. She taught a higher level, and one day I borrowed her grammar book. Every place where the author had included a footnote that said, "Informal," she had crossed it out in red and written, 'Incorrect." I warned my own students ever after. Yes, long may they wave.

Kenneth

The apotheosis of 'their' -
I consider my audience, too (which of us doesn't?), and always assume that it is composed of literate folk who would justifiably giggle (because they thought I was, at best, being funny) if I used the ab surdum locution under discussion here. There are lots of idioms and grammatical eccentricities that have been around as long as this singular plural that some of us are trying very hard to deify. I continue to maintain the opinion that the greater part of its very vocal proponents who feel so strongly about it do so, not in the slightest as a nod to Chaucer or antiquity, but because it is thought to be all but required in a world in which we must at all cost avoid saying 'he-his'. So! It's simple, say 'she-hers', or even 'it'. Shakespeare also used 'aint', as did polite gentry up until near-recent times. So, shall we all start saying 'aint' because it has a long and noble pedigree? - I don't think that it would get us very far. An eagle-eyed student (probably a sophomore who thinks he has discovered something no one else knows) will chirp that he found parallel fifths in Bach's works - so shall we all start slewing them willy-nilly throughout our own work? - I don't think that it would get us very far. (When all is said and all is done not one of us, highly literate to a man and a woman, is going to change his mind.)

Smart parents!!!

... spin-off thread notwithstanding

I'm sure you have noticed by now that we excel at spin-off threads. LOL.

Of course across the pond we have examples of singular-plural that diverge from what is ordinary here. There one might be interested to read that 'the choir are on recess for the summer', or 'the congregation are asked to sing', or 'the public are invited', etc. It is fun, really, trying to guess which plurals are singular and vice versa over there (though I, who have loved Britishisms since I was in the fifth grade [and never had a teacher or professor take issue], do enjoy joining that fray). I don't think, though, that this falls into the same category as 'the woman was badly burned because a candle fell into their hair'. Such absurdities are commonplace (I didn't make it up) in print over there and over here. I am certain that this idiocy was not around in my youth; certain because I remember being quite astonished when, a few feminist years ago, all of a sudden everyone was saying idiotic things like 'everyone in the room brought their lunch', or 'the lady spilt coffee on their dress', or 'every student must bring their own books'. Thank you, I shall ever consider that my audience are literate and capable of distinguishing between rational and irrational language - and it has nothing at all to do with these would-be-lofty assertions that language is a growing, ever-changing thing unbound by rules (my goodness! that's hardly news!): it has everything to do with plain old sloppy usage and follow-the-crowd speech, with a good bit of whatever-you-do-don't-offend-any-feminists-who-might-be-within-earshot thrown in.

Charles,

The second, even if artificially imposed, respects both the singular aspect of student and the fact that he and she are appropriate pronouns for students. "They", in the first example is precisely the sort of oblong-headed behavior we see too often in our country (and I'm on the left edge of the left side of the pond). There's no good reason for the first. None.

Charles,

I'm glad we agree on the principles. Since we're living in the era of Common Core, could someone explain to me why textbooks have to be used to advance social agendas?

Imagine a music history textbook which focused only on women composers, or compositions for women!

I have yet to see a sentence procreate.

Happens on this forum all the time.
ALL THE TIME.

Happens on this forum all the time.

Big sentences make little ones? And the little ones grow by adding clauses, I suppose. The problem children don't have commas, semis, or periods?

perhaps we should bring back the word Miss for unmarried females who we know are unmarried or who have given us good reason to believe they are unmarried or unmarriagable.

What?! When people call me "Miss", I always assume it's because I'm so young-looking. Now, I might have to think it's because I seem unmarriagable. Oh dear!

You probably missed the strange looks behind your back if you used it for an adult woman....

When I was in elementary school twenty years ago, old fogey, me, almost all the students called the teachers Miss X, whether they actually styled themselves (in writing) Miss, Mrs., or Ms.---even the men occasionally got called 'Miss' from time to time. 'Miss' was probably preferred due to having fewer syllables, the all-purpose contraction:
Missus = Miss' / Mister = Mis' .