One benefit that _they_ has over _e_ is that it is distinguishable from _he_ in those variants that tend to drop word-initial _h_. Another benefit that these

One benefit that _they_ has over _e_ is that it is distinguishable from _he_ in those variants that tend to drop word-initial _h_. Another benefit that these novel pronouns can't pick up is that _they_ is the normal gender-neutral pronoun in use by native speakers, and has been so for centuries. The Spivak pronouns are not. If you have to explicitly teach pronouns to adult native speakers, or if using a pronoun requires deliberate thought, then there is something wrong. I can think of two drawbacks of the normal gender-neutral pronoun, but I can't see how they are solved by Spivak pronouns, in fact, one of them is much worse. 1) Some people think that singular _they_ sounds awkard. However, considering the Spivak pronouns are a novel coinage in a closed class of words, it's almost certain that more people would find them more awkward than the normal gender-neutral pronouns. 2) There is a possibility for ambiguity with the plural pronoun. However, I can't think of a situation in which it wouldn't also be ambiguous with an distinct singular gender neutral pronoun.