When I edited copy I went to great lengths to do the "he/she" when confronted with singular they. I also rewrote sentences to avoid them, and pluralized the whole thing. Now that I've retired and stopped editing other people's copy, I'm also older and wiser. Of course singular they is correct.

I've had this problem crop up with moderate frequency in online forums, where the sex of individual posters is unknown. After getting repeatedly corrected by males named Gingerie and Versa, and females named Barco and BillBob, I gave up. Plurals will have to do, at least, in context.

When I was editing copy several years ago for a newspaper published during an international conference in Geneva, I remarked to one of my co-workers how astonished I was that so many contributors could be so insensitive to the numerical mismatch. He explained that since the singular they had been "politically negotiated," there wasn't much we could do about it. But I still can't bring myself to use it in my own writing: I use he, she, or both.

Having through through it critically once a few years ago, let me humbly suggest a practical rule, which I borrow from the French, though I'm sure other languages use it too. Simply use his or her for someone and their for somebody.

Sorry, I meant "Having THOUGHT through it..."

I'm having a hard time seeing how that rule is practical, Lawrence. What is gained by using "he or she" with one and "they" with the other? And what about all the other places where epicene or generic "they" is used, like the "no one" in the sentence quoted in the post above?