Originally Posted by
Silvaire1
Last week I asked my instructor whether an organization (with a Z, mind you) takes the plural or singular in German... she replied "singular, like English". I explained this feature of UK English and she'd never heard of it.
The use of 'they' as a singular pronoun of usually but not always indeterminate gender is well established since the earliest days of Modern English. I haste to add that this usage is not limited to Britain, as evidenced by its inclusion in Merriam-Webster dictionaries.