Call them what they wants

I have no hope of divesting modern Anglophone societies of the “Billy and I” rule, given how irritating many find observations such as those I’ve made above. However, most of us will agree on this: Mastering that rule requires a certain effort, self-training, a nudging of ourselves beyond what would have come out on its own (at least at an earlier stage of our lives). If we have no problem exerting the effort to observe this rule, why not exert a little more to master a new way of using they? We observe the “Billy and I” rule out of a sense of manners, poise, or even class marking. Is not being solicitous an equally compelling reason—or, some might say, a more compelling one—to learn a new manner of expression?

Quite a few younger people, after all, are already using the new they with effortless fluency, mastering it along with the “Billy and I” rule. It might not occur to a new speaker of English, but they internalize this form in order to operate in the world as we know it—or as it is changing. I, for one, am not ready to say that the young harbor an energy and flexibility that I have become too set in my ways to match.