Traditional English is still, at least partially, a sexually irrelevantistic language. (The situation is worse in related languages, and much worse in those related languages in which all nouns are genderized.) The usual present form of English does not have a third-person singular pronoun. This absence of a sex- or gender-neutral and -transcending pronoun to refer to 'a third person' forces the language user to choose either from the masculine third-male pronouns he/him/his or from the feminine third-female pronouns she/her in a context in which (natural) sex or (cultural) gender did not, does not, will not and cannot make any difference, according to the speaker or writer himself/herself/'themselves'/'imself.
People who do not consider every tradition sacred by definition have objected to the forced use of the exclusively masculine and exclusively feminine pronouns for various reasons, such as:
The first three of these four objections have led traditionalists who were willing to admit that the use of the masculine pronouns for all people was partial to begin using the cumbersome he or she and its variants. Others who were aware of the sexual irrelevantism in this construction, and who recognized the fact that not everyone and not every animal body need be exclusively the one or the other, began to use the plural they in the singular to refer to an indefinite person or human/animal being or, perhaps, also to a particular person or human/animal being, regardless of sex or gender. At the moment of creating the above poem (in the 75th year after the end of the Second World War) they (with them and their) is the alternative personal pronoun most frequently used to go with or replace he and she.
Altho they is not too awkward a pronoun in combination with any, every and somebody or someone, its use is monstrous when referring, or trying to refer, to definite people and animal beings in the singular. The they singularizers seem to totally forget that English is 'a number language', that is a language in which a speaker or writer, as a rule, must distinguish the one from the 'many' (more than one) with respect to almost all nouns and pronouns. Even standard (Putonghua) Chinese, which in general does not recognize number as a linguistic category, draws a distinction between the singular and the plural in pronouns. (In Chinese the standard nouns act like sheep, which may refer to one, two or any other number of sheep. The plural of pronouns, and some nouns, is formed by adding 们 or men to the singular.)
All four reasons above play a role in the Model of Neutral-Inclusivity published 34 years before What the Sad One Said. However, the fourth reason is typical of the role relevance, and an explicit principle of relevance, play in the Model, and which led to the proposal and use of the singular pronouns 'e, 'im and 'er by analogy with the plural pronouns they, them and their. (See Speaking person-to-person in the first chapter of the Book of Instruments.) The new pronoun 'e is meant to be used if and when sex or gender is (believed to be) irrelevant in the context concerned; if and when sex or gender is (believed or suggested to be) relevant, and clearly the one instead of the other, the pronouns he and she can still be used to refer to males/boys/men and to females/girls/women respectively. In other words, 'e is not by any means a replacement in the language, but truly and relevantly an enrichment of This Language.
With this information it should not only be easier to fully understand the poem What the Sad One Said, as published at the top of this page; it should also be easier for traditionalists and they singularizers alike to embrace a far better alternative.
