"They" actually does not have a rich history of singular use. Every example I've ever seen people give, dated from before the 1900s, is one of two categories:
1) Indefinite they, referring to person or persons unspecified or unknown. That is the example given in your OED-blog citation. Other examples would be things like "Well, we don't know who broke into the pharmacy, but we do know they wore size nine shoes".
2) Corporate they, as in "I called the customer help line and they said--" where the line was answered by an individual, but the individual was functioning as an organization's mouthpiece. 'They' refers to the organization.
Using 'they' to refer to a known, named individual is quite recent. And I favor reserving it for persons with multiple personalities in a single body: the only time that usage is really precise.
English does need a 3rd-person gender-neutral singular pronoun, but I'd rather adopt a new one like 'zie' or 'per'.
no subject
1) Indefinite they, referring to person or persons unspecified or unknown. That is the example given in your OED-blog citation. Other examples would be things like "Well, we don't know who broke into the pharmacy, but we do know they wore size nine shoes".
2) Corporate they, as in "I called the customer help line and they said--" where the line was answered by an individual, but the individual was functioning as an organization's mouthpiece. 'They' refers to the organization.
Using 'they' to refer to a known, named individual is quite recent. And I favor reserving it for persons with multiple personalities in a single body: the only time that usage is really precise.
English does need a 3rd-person gender-neutral singular pronoun, but I'd rather adopt a new one like 'zie' or 'per'.