What Color Is Your Parachute 2018 by Richard N. Bolles copy

A Grammar and Language Note
I want to explain four points of grammar, in this book of mine: pronouns,
commas, italics, and spelling. My unorthodox use of them invariably
offends unemployed English teachers so much that instead of finishing the
book, they immediately write to apply for a job as my editor.
To save us unnecessary correspondence, let me explain. Throughout this
book, I often use the apparently plural pronouns “they,” “them,” and
“their” after singular antecedents—such as, “You must approach someone
for a job and tell them what you can do.” This sounds strange and even
wrong to those who know English well. To be sure, we all know there is
another pronoun—“you”—that may be either singular or plural, but few of
us realize that the pronouns “they,” “them,” and “their” were also once
treated as both plural and singular in the English language. This changed,
at a time in English history when agreement in number became more
important than agreement as to sexual gender. Today, however, our
priorities have shifted once again. Now, the distinguishing of sexual
gender is considered by many to be more important than agreement in
number.
The common artifices used for this new priority, such as “s/he,” or “he
and she,” are—to my mind—tortured and inelegant. Casey Miller and Kate
Swift, in their classic, The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing, agree, and
argue that it is time to bring back the earlier usage of “they,” “them,” and
“their” as both singular and plural—just as “you” is/are. They further
argue that this return to the earlier historical usage has already become
quite common out on the street—witness a typical sign by the ocean that
reads, “Anyone using this beach after 5 p.m. does so at their own risk.” I
have followed Casey and Kate’s wise recommendations in all of this.
As for my commas, they are deliberately used according to my own
rules—rather than according to the rules of historic grammar (which I did
learn—I hastily add, to reassure my old Harvard professors, who despaired
of me weekly, during English class). In spite of those rules, I follow my
own, which are: to write conversationally, and put in a comma wherever I
would normally stop for a breath, were I speaking the same line.
The same conversational rule applies to my use of italics. This book is a