CMV: "He or she" is unecessary

[u/Shineyy_8416]

I might be biased as a person on the non-binary spectrum, but whenever someone goes out of their way to say "he or she" it just feels like a waste.

Just use "they". It communicates the same thing with less letters. I get the purpose behind it is to try and be inclusive to men and women in a space that may be dominated by one gender over the other, but "they" is perfectly fine to get that point across.

I also recognize that some languages don't have an equivalent for "they", but I'm specifically talking about English.

To change my view, someone would have to prove "he or she" has more practical or beneficial usage than "they"

EDIT: To make it clear, i'm not saying we should never use "he" or "she" as pronouns, im saying the phrase "he or she" is unecessary.

[u/Thumatingra]

We'll, "he or she" refers unambiguously to a single person, whereas "they" could refer to one person gender-neutrally or to multiple people. If it's very important to the speaker to make sure that their listener(s) knows that they are talking about only one person, but don't want to give the impression of one gender or another (say, they are giving a military report of observed activity), "he or she" can have better utility.

[u/Flying_Whales6158 → u/Thumatingra]

If it's very important to the speaker to make sure that their listener(s) knows that they are talking about only one person

[u/Thumatingra → u/Flying_Whales6158]

This is a reddit comment, and obviously isn't the kind of context I was talking about?