[quote=@Heroic]
Ugh, English debates. Thought I'd seen the last of those.
[/quote]

English rebates. $20 back.

[quote=@whizzball1]
<Snipped quote by Legend>

Actually, it's not older. Ann Bodine in "Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar" explains how some nineteenth-century grammarians put forth the idea of using "he" because of social motivation, although at the time the correct usages were either "they" or "he or she". The earliest mentions of the idea are Wilson in 1560 and Poole in 1646 because of their androcentric worldview. "set the man before the woman for maners sake..." -Wilson and "The Masculine gender is more worthy than the Feminine." -Poole. However, it didn't catch on, and the use of "they" from old continued on until 1850, when the British Parliament passed an act that "words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females".

I was just joking. Notice the lack of capitalisation and punctuation and the silly face.
[/quote]

Literally all of my research points toward the opposite.

And I was responding in a jokingly true manner.