Personal Pronouns

[Rocco Stanzione]

I'm taking a break from editing the serverguide until somebody can give me 
some guidance on this:

             For example, when a user requests the page
             http://www.example.com/this_directory/, they are going to
             get either the DirectoryIndex page if it exists, or a
             server-generated directory list. 

The word "they" here deeply offends purists such as myself.  "They" is plural, 
of course, and it's a pronoun referring here to a singular user.  To my 
chagrin, many authoritative bodies have begun calling this abomination 
"acceptable", but as far as I know they have not gone so far as to call it 
correct.  Traditionally, "he" is the correct word here (followed by "is", of 
course), to be interpreted as a gender-neutral pronoun in this context.  I've 
seen the use of "she" to maintain agreement with the subject without 
offending the (ridiculous) sensitivities of those who find gender persecution 
in the structure of the language.  I'm fine with this if everyone else is, 
but I prefer "he".

Whatever the answer to this is, it should probably be added to the styleguide.

Thanks,

Rocco Stanzione