The Search For A Gender-Neutral Singular Pronoun Has Gone On For Centuries

Yes, they has been used in the singular since the late Middle Ages, but people complained about it, and looked for a different solution, back then and ever since. The effort to come up with alternatives has engaged not only lexicographers, writers and teachers but also attorneys, judges, and legislators; the issue even played a role in the fight for women’s suffrage. – London Review of Books

Our Enduring Myths Of College

Thirty-four million Americans—over a tenth of the nation’s population—have some college credits but dropped out before graduating. They are nearly twice as likely as college graduates to be unemployed and four times more likely to default on student loans. That’s a scandal for the nation, not just for higher education. We like to imagine college as an egalitarian force, which reduces the gap between rich and poor. But over the past four decades it has mostly served to reinforce or even to widen that gap. – New York Review of Books

Before 1834 The Word “Scientist” Didn’t Exist

The word “scientist” first appeared in March 1834, while Darwin was surveying the Falkland Islands on overland expeditions from the HMS Beagle, being no scientist but an explorer, adventurer, observer, and diarist. The word began as a passing joke in The Quarterly Review. The wit who coined it was the English philosopher and Anglican clergyman William Whewell, and the context was a positive, though excruciatingly patronizing, review of a best seller of popular science by the mathematician and physicist Mary Somerville. – New York Review of Books