I would argue that languages evolve when someone needs to express a concept and reaches for a word, finds nothing, and improvises. The first person who does it

I would argue that languages evolve when someone needs to express a concept and reaches for a word, finds nothing, and improvises. The first person who does it always stands out, but if other people around them have the same need, the word catches on. Eventually, the perception of arrogance mellows and it becomes an ordinary word. I don't like artificial pronouns either, they stick in my mouth and feel weird, and I'm lazy so I use they. But other people have other preferences or needs so I try to tamp down any unproductive instinctive reaction in myself- who am I to say in a hundred years we won't be using them? After all, our post-singularity AI offspring won't have the same idea of gender as we do...