Because in English (at least speaking formally) there is no singular gender-neutral pronoun that can be used to describe people. Many people (including me) inco

Because in English (at least speaking formally) there is no singular gender-neutral pronoun that can be used to describe people. Many people (including me) incorrectly use "they", which is actually a plural. "Her" was used in place of "his" more in the interests of political correctness than anything else. Some authors will switch genders between examples, some will use "his or hers" (which seems overly formal to me), and some just use "they". I'm of the opinion that English will evolve over the next few decades to include "they" as a formally recognized singular pronoun. Languages exist to serve the culture they're a part of, not the other way around - and many (most?) of us are already using "they" incorrectly. More information available at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Modern_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Modern_E...