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AllezAllez510
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 19, 2009 - 03:20pm PT
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In the vein of the bad young managers thread...Any good stories about lame backstabbing cooworkers?
I'm a teacher who fell victim to the latest round of layoffs. I asked my fellow 6th grade teachers to not let any of the kids know. Well, one of them could no just keep it to themselves and let a bunch of kids know. Now, all of my kids know. Yes, some are sad, others are glad...but it's the principle. If I ask some co-workers to not tell kids something, should I have a reasonable expectation of compliance?
Any lame cooworker stories from you guys?
P.S. Anybody wanting to make a comment about why I'm on ST when I should be working...please note that I'm on my DUTY FREE lunch period.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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May 19, 2009 - 03:34pm PT
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They only truly owe compliance if required by law.
The thing is I can't figure out why they would bother telling the kids, unless the kids asked about it. Then I wouldn't expect the teacher to lie necessarily.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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May 19, 2009 - 04:00pm PT
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"one of them could no just keep it to themselves"
It is bad news for you, but possibly a good day for students. We can only hope that the students now will have a teacher who knows and uses better English, and teaches them better as well.
Losing a job is usually a message that you are not well suited to it. With luck, you will find one that is a better match for your skills.
Best wishes.
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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Laguna Beach, CA
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May 19, 2009 - 04:06pm PT
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Ditto
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UncleDoug
climber
No. Lake Tahoe, CA
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May 19, 2009 - 04:07pm PT
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Ditto the ditto.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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May 19, 2009 - 04:10pm PT
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Not at all, granite. There is a multiplier effect. Tens of students are missing an education that they badly need each year.
The taxpayers are paying for it. The parents want their kids to be better educated and better prepared for either jobs or higher education.
Filtering out the under-qualified is, and should be, a part of every business, especially education. The sooner, the better, for two reasons. One - they do less harm. Two - if they aren't filtered out before tenure, they fail to perform for the rest of their careers.
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apogee
climber
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May 19, 2009 - 04:17pm PT
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After about 8 years with an outdoor program, I moved into a managerial position, and had to hire an assistant manager to work with. The one I picked was someone I had had a history of conflicts with, but I chose her because she had a set of skills that our staff would value, and to be quite honest, partly because of her gender.
Not surprisingly, we wound up in conflict, and made efforts to gain a more functional working relationship. All the while, she began working subversively (in my opinion) to build her relationship with our superior as well as several other co-workers, and ultimately I wound up in a situation where it was either her or I. I chose to leave, though it was not a happy decision, and it completely disrupted and redirected my life.
It really sucked, as I had a huge professional and personal commitment to this program, and my naieve, idealistic choice to hire her bit me hard in the *ss. I will always remember that lesson.
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Fresh
Trad climber
meffa, ma
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May 19, 2009 - 04:22pm PT
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"Filtering out the under-qualified is, and should be, a part of every business, especially education. The sooner, the better, for two reasons. One - they do less harm. Two - if they aren't filtered out before tenure, they fail to perform for the rest of their careers."
yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it.
how do you know allez was a crappy teacher? are you just guessing that's the case because he was laid off? because that's laughably insufficient evidence.
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mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
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May 19, 2009 - 04:27pm PT
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Allezallez510,
Make sure you use your sick days, sometimes you are not able to transfer them between districts.
Trailisgood,
One error typed on climbing message board has no bearing on Allezallez510 as a teacher. However your comment speaks for the type of person you are.
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hafilax
Trad climber
East Van
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May 19, 2009 - 04:38pm PT
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TIG: Not all teachers teach English and nobody is perfect.
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nature
climber
Tucson, AZ
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May 19, 2009 - 04:41pm PT
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DadIsBad just generally sucks all the way around. Not use to it?
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nita
climber
chica from chico, I don't claim to be a daisy
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May 19, 2009 - 04:44pm PT
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TIG, What a asswipe thing to say!
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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May 19, 2009 - 04:49pm PT
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hafilax, of course. But he said he was a sixth grade teacher. He didn't say he was an art teacher who taught 6th graders, or a music teacher, etc.
So the assumption that he should be teaching English is reasonable.
I did not pick on the grossly misspelled word (twice) or even put [sic] by the "no" when it should have been "not".
I also can't, as Dingus points, out conclude that his peers are any better. But it does seem a step in the right direction for both him and the school system.
I would hope we all wish him well.
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apogee
climber
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May 19, 2009 - 04:52pm PT
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DMT: "Beware the worker who wants your job...."
Um, yeah- the aforementioned coworker was hired into my position after I left. Lesson learned.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 05:01pm PT
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That's the problem, t*r, talent doesn't figure into which teachers get the boot.
I'd be OK with keeping the best teachers and getting rid of the marginal ones (like ones who haven't mastered English).
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Josh Higgins
Trad climber
San Diego
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May 19, 2009 - 05:04pm PT
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As I understand it, teachers in California are rated on length of time in the position, not merit, as a result of the unions. Maybe allezallez5.10 was just hired most recently? Tradisgood, you're being uncool...
Josh
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 05:08pm PT
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TIG wasn't out of line.
It's the same as if I came on here as a bartender and told you a Rusty Nail is made with Whiskey.
The one thing you should know is your business!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 19, 2009 - 05:09pm PT
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Lazy eye and TIG, anyone who runs spellcheck or sweats over typos on a climgbing board has way too much fckin time on their hands.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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May 19, 2009 - 05:13pm PT
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That just pure sucks, allez.
But karma will do the bum in. . .
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UncleDoug
climber
No. Lake Tahoe, CA
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May 19, 2009 - 05:25pm PT
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Ditto!!!
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xtrmecat
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montanagonia
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May 19, 2009 - 05:27pm PT
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DMT, yes beware indeed. My boss at a 17 year trade occupation was a screw off big time. Practical jokes, blowing things up, mean jokes on anyone not like him, etc.. I thought as you that he never needed to interact with me means that I was doing my job and he was not saddled with having to motivate me.
True, to a point. When the layoffs were coming last september it all became apparent to things that had recently happened. I worked under him for three years with no need to improve anything on my part, according to his evaluations of me, that is. Then one day out of the blue, he comes into the break room, yelling at me, (for the benefit of making a scene)and proceded to start the paperwork for discipline, and I have no idea what was happening.
He writes me up per company policy, I sign a copy, and just write it off to his having a bad day,(neighbor screwing his wife/dog died) whatever. Withing a day his boss stops by for a chat, about my performance, and boy did that come from nowhere. He had been recieving complaints of me not doing anything since the "incident" and that my boss said my attitude was disruptive to all other workers in the shop. I was the worker in the shop, the other spent his time on the internet with the boss, watching porn/ action videos all day.
Long story short I filed a complaint of harassment of around a 100 things he had done to me that were directly against company policy, like grabbing my balls from behind to watch me jump, and degrading me in front of other workers for his amusement. Investigation ensued, outside legal people hired to be objective, investigation goes really well from my point, according to all involved. Layoff begins before investigation is complete, and I am the first to go due to disciplinary problems.
Go figure. The salary people, friends of mine had been forwarned of coming cutbacks, so they could decide who needed to go. I hunt with a few of them, and we talked about it.
I only needed to be mad at him for around twenty four hours, and then just decided it really was him that had to live with the a$$hole, not me. Really hurt economically, and life changed drastically. I'm poor, but happy. People like him may have their income and security, but I'd be willing to bet it takes many a cocktail to get to sleep at night. Pity him really. I'd rather struggle every day than live like that.
Bob
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adam d
climber
CA
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May 19, 2009 - 05:27pm PT
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look! i didn't capitalize anything! i'm not fit to teach either!
sorry to hear it Allez. Seems to me that in a community of educators your colleagues should have respected your wishes on this, whether they're required to or not.
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Edge
Trad climber
New Durham, NH
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May 19, 2009 - 05:29pm PT
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I was self-employed as a furniture maker/designer for 12 years (and hence no coworkers) before I realized that working alone all day in my shop was not healthy for me. My first clue was the fact that my dogs didn't listen to NPR, and were completely unaccepting of informed verbal debate. My second flag was the intense desire to imbibe cocktails at 2 pm, but I digress.
I then took a job teaching wood shop/construction trades at an alternative high school, and promptly got certified by the state of NH. I also learned a variety of unique skills, like therapeutic restraints, ducking when someone swings an iron pipe at you, and being able to make two sided Xerox copies. I did this successfully for three years, and always thought that as long as there were troubled kids, I had job security.
Three weeks ago our parent company decided to close our school, the most successful in the organization, due to budget issues and a key sending district starting their own Alt-Ed program. Of the 12 employees at the school, I was the only one who was offered a job at the parent location, a one hour commute away. Basically I will be creating the program from scratch at a whole new location, and will enjoy the challenge.
I will do this until my rather large house sells (both kids are now in college, so time to cut bait) and then the wife and I will take an extended road trip with the end game of relocating to Colorado.
As for a coworker story, sorta, back when I was working construction my company hired a crew of insulators, heavy metal heads with one brain that they shared amongst the four of them on some random basis. They showed up each day with a $400 boom box and just blasted obnoxious music, defying kind pleas, demands, and eventual threats.
After three days of this nonsense, I arrived early and hardwired their preferred outlet to 220 volts. Proud.
Allez, you got a raw deal, man, and I wish you the best.
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AllezAllez510
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2009 - 05:36pm PT
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Wow, TIG...quite the response. I didn't realize I had to go over my posting with a fine-tooth grammar comb. Shall I APA format this as well? I generally took you for a fairly cool headed individual who injects some good quantitative sense into topics like renewable energy etc.....I guess you're just...well, I won't call you names. I hope you enjoy the kind of job security that allows you to put people down after being laid off. I also hope that your co-workers are members of the Swedish Bikini Team. Have a nice day.
edit: and also, call me shi%ty teacher...I could care less. I have documented test scores for the past five years that say otherwise.
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Redlands
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May 19, 2009 - 05:43pm PT
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Good luck Allez, hope you can find another spot soon.
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mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
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May 19, 2009 - 05:49pm PT
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"I could care less." you mean to say: I could not care less
Watch out TIG will jump on that too.
Best of luck- My students were telling me about their science teacher breaking down and in class about getting her pink slip. It is looking grim out there.
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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May 19, 2009 - 05:55pm PT
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"I also can't, as Dingus points, out conclude that his peers are any better."
might know how
to spell check,
but can't punctuate
can ya.
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dirtbag
climber
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May 19, 2009 - 05:56pm PT
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TR, you are on a roll!
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 06:23pm PT
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""I could care less." you mean to say: I could not care less"
Mrtropy, are you from outside the country, or are you otherwise not conversant in American English? Knowledge of a language includes knowledge of idioms. The idiom is "I could care less."
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adam d
climber
CA
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May 19, 2009 - 06:39pm PT
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Idioms frequently defy the Principle of Compositionality. The fact is, people use both expressions. Both have meaning, and both are idioms. As for which form someone else uses, I couldn't care less.
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mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
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May 19, 2009 - 06:43pm PT
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The idiom is "I could care less. Wrong
graniteclimber you are wrong.
I am correct and you are wrong.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 06:48pm PT
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mrtropy, see the tutorial for dingbats.
"That old people are following their lead is deeply disturbing."
Dingus, how old are you?!!!111 Did you grow up pre-WWII?
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 07:03pm PT
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That he's old and cantankerous, yes. I knew that he'd agree with its conclusion, but it does establish what the idiom is, even if he doesn't like it. I laughed when I read it to think that someone would take the time to write that up. By a dingbat for dingbats.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 07:48pm PT
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Those who can't teach, teach PE.
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AllezAllez510
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2009 - 08:08pm PT
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Well, I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't think I'll frequent this forum anymore. Cool TR's and discussions, but the number of cranky old geezers who have nothing better to do than nitpick others' grammar is just too much. Good day.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 08:11pm PT
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"cranky old geezers who have nothing better to do than nitpick others' grammar is just too much."
You nailed it. Your backstabbing co-workers have nothing on the Taco Grammer Nazis.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 08:15pm PT
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One thing all us old cranky bastards have in common is we all spent long hours in school having teachers nitpick our grammar.
So we hold teachers to higher standards of grammar, higher than they hold themselves evidently.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 08:21pm PT
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Is that why you hate all teachers, Chaz? Because you couldn't handle them nitpicking your grammer? You've said before that you want all teachers fired.
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the Fet
Supercaliyosemistic climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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May 19, 2009 - 08:22pm PT
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Dingus, how old are you?!!!111 Did you grow up pre-WWII?
pre-WWII? Hell Dingus grew up pre-Atari. Sorry, that was terrible.
Best of luck Allez. Equating a typo on a forum post to your job performance when you were just laid off is the sign of an ass, nothing to do with you, but I'm sure you knew that.
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dirtbag
climber
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May 19, 2009 - 08:25pm PT
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Oh F*#kin-A Chaz, of all the dumb ass posts I've seen, yours and TIG's take the cake. It's a goddamned internet forum posting, nit pickers, not Strunk and White's "Elements of Style."
Lame.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 08:32pm PT
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You've got it wrong, Graniteclimber.
I WANT people to nitpick my grammar. I take it as an oportunity to learn something.
Allez doesn't like it, though. Maybe he feels as if he's learned enough.
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dirtbag
climber
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May 19, 2009 - 08:36pm PT
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Well, we learned something about you and TIG.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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May 19, 2009 - 08:36pm PT
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lots of grammar cops over at rc. they're really into it there.
maybe tig and chaz would feel more at home in that crowd.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 08:40pm PT
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I spotted a grammatical mistake or two in my last post.
See if any of the school teachers here can spot them.
Maybe there's a reason y'all are being laid off.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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May 19, 2009 - 08:41pm PT
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pick your own nits.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 08:45pm PT
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There is a reason why they're being laid off. The Republican wingnuts bankrupted the country and now the schools afford to pay all the teachers they need.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 19, 2009 - 08:46pm PT
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" Well, we learned something about you and TIG."
We didn't learn anything new about Chaz and TIG that we didn't already know.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 19, 2009 - 08:50pm PT
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The colloquial have got for have should not be used in writing.
Any person doing so should voluntarily leave his/her job and never work again.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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May 19, 2009 - 08:52pm PT
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There's at least one more, Mr Roehl.
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Dapper Dan
climber
Menlo Park
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May 19, 2009 - 10:49pm PT
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Tradisgood:
One night your mom went to take a big sh#t, and out came you .
Congrats on being the turd of the day .
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IntheFog
climber
Mostly the next place
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May 20, 2009 - 12:22am PT
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I'm all for good grammar, and good teachers. I orginally thought TIG was right about the grammar, but now I'm not so sure. Using the internuts, I found a bunch of examples of respected (and respectable) writers using a plural pronoun after a singular pronoun. Being a grammar nerd, I had to share:
in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
Everyone, to rest themselves betake.
(Interestingly, this guy -- Shakespeare -- originally wrote "himself" and then changed it.)
God send every one their heart's desire!
Poor Julia, the only one out of the nine not tolerably satisfied with their lot
Who makes you their confidant?
that every one may be at liberty to fix their own...
And yes, many of these come from Jane Austen. I got them here:
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austhlis.html
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html
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WBraun
climber
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May 20, 2009 - 12:56am PT
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You should be happy that Tradisgood made his now infamous post up thread so that you could start your own slander/backstabing run out on him.
makes you all feel real good, huh?
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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May 20, 2009 - 01:35am PT
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Jesus Jumping Christ on a Stick!
Don't you SOBs have a wife to beat or a dog to kick...or is being a pompous prick on the Internet your only outlet?
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Dapper Dan
climber
Menlo Park
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May 20, 2009 - 01:55am PT
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When I see some chump like tradisgood make a comment like, "We can only hope that the students now will have a teacher who knows and uses better English, and teaches them better as well", it feels like a low blow to a guy who is already pretty down about losing his job. It seems unnecessary and it makes me upset , not only as a person, but as a fellow teacher.
Hence the slander. Can you understand that WBraun?
Imagine someone disparaging one of your fellow SAR colleagues who had just been laid off...
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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May 20, 2009 - 02:11am PT
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This just in from the Pedants’ Agains’t Apos’trophe, Adjective and Alliteration Abus’e and As’s’orted Grammatical Atros’ities’:
AA510: Sorry about your news - hopefully another, better, door will open elsewhere soon. And you do have three threads in the top five at the moment, which is a rare feat.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 20, 2009 - 07:25am PT
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Lazy eye, The point is that this internet posting crap is a colossal waste of time and any fool who actually goes back and spell checks their posts has too much of that time to waste. Heck i waste as much time as anyone else on here but I will certainly not lose any sleep over typos.
I contest that any internet poster who calls an oponent on spelling or gramer has lost the argument and is resorting to diversionary tactics. YMMV
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 20, 2009 - 08:01am PT
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The shallow, bitter, angry self richous and mean spirited old white guys strike again. And they wonder why it not cool to be a republican these days,,,
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hooblie
climber
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May 20, 2009 - 08:34am PT
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some wrecks you just drive by, some you try and pitch in. this one makes me feel terrible for my fellow man and about my fellow man. there's gotta be another way to get around
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Shen Miller
climber
Tucson, AZ
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May 20, 2009 - 11:27am PT
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TradIsGood is an as#@&%e.
How is MY english? Readable enough for you?
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Floridaputz
Trad climber
Oakland Park Florida
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May 20, 2009 - 11:50am PT
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Perhaps history's most famous back stabber.
Ceasar "ET TU BRUTE ?"
I should have know better
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 20, 2009 - 11:59am PT
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Please, you must also leave your job forever... yes, you should never work again!
It's Ceasar and "ET TU, BRUTE."
Miss the old tune "Backstabber."
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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May 20, 2009 - 01:21pm PT
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I'm interested in grammar and language. I like it when people correct my mistakes--sometimes they are just typos but sometimes I learn something.
Obviously some other people feel different (or differently?--that's a bit more complicated than you might think).
For people who couldn't care less about grammar/spelling/usage etc.: just skip any post on those subjects; it's not big deal.
Anyway, stating that someone is a bad teacher just because of a grammar error, and a debatable one at that, on an Internet post is taking it way beyond where I would go.
I've got sympathy for just about anyone who's having financial trouble these days--good luck and keep plugging away.
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apogee
climber
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May 20, 2009 - 01:28pm PT
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Why has this thread grown so rapidly? So TiG made a cold, heartless, ridiculous remark- that sh*t happens on ST (and many would say is common from TiG). The indignation displayed by the growth of this thread serves largely to keep a spotlight on a stoooopid comment. Time to move along, folks.
AA510- condolences on the loss of your job. That really sucks, especially now.
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nate23
Trad climber
c-ville, virginia
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May 20, 2009 - 01:48pm PT
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You people make me sick. Keep your chin up brother :-)
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 20, 2009 - 04:05pm PT
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I could care less!
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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May 20, 2009 - 04:47pm PT
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Somewhere I read that it was poor form to correct forum postings that had misspelled words and/or incorrect grammar.
I mean, it is not like we are presenting a Ph.D. dissertation or some similar. Hell even after multiple reviewers and reviews my dissertation had screw ups in it. I just laugh. Just like I laugh when someone screws up what they are writing and it innocently changes what they are trying to say. Sometimes then it is worth poking fun at them. But rarely.
Now if the person is trying to present themselves* in a certain manner and is making horrid mistakes then it might worth making a remark. I did that the other day when a person wanted to learn another language so they could teach yet could not use present themselves* in a manner that showed they could their native language properly.
However, I typically I chalk all of this topic up to typing and thinking in the moment. So AA is not perfect. Who is? Try being dyslexic and trying to type your thoughts as they come. I make a huge number of mistakes. Most get corrected before a posting, some do not. Those that do not get corrected I feel dumb about because later they seem so obvious but at the time they were not.
AA - About the only way to prevent what happened with your co-worker is to never do or say anything that you would not want on a billboard next to the interstate. Sorry to hear you will be looking for a new job.
*AA original's sentence "one of them could no(t) just keep it to themselves" is grammatically correct. As themselves can be used singularly instead of “himself” or “herself” to refer to a person of unspecified sex : anyone who fancies themselves as a racing driver. So Tradisgood's original comment is specious.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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May 20, 2009 - 05:05pm PT
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I don't know why anyone would care enough about this to make it a research project to show that the usage is correct, but it mattered enough to someone that they took it on themselves to write this.
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html
The singular "they"/"their"/"them"/"themselves" construction
These files contain a list of over 75 occurrences of the words "they"/"their"/"them"/"themselves" referring to a singular antecedent with indefinite or generic meaning in Jane Austen's writings (mainly in her six novels), as well as further examples of singular "their" etc. from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and elsewhere. While your high-school English teacher may have told you not to use this construction, it actually dates back to at least the 14th century, and was used by the following authors (among others) in addition to Jane Austen: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, the King James Bible, The Spectator, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Frances Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Fielding, Maria Edgeworth, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, Sir Walter Scott, George Eliot [Mary Anne Evans], Charles Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, George Bernard Shaw, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, W. H. Auden, Lord Dunsany, George Orwell, and C. S. Lewis.
Singular "their" etc., was an accepted part of the English language before the 18th-century grammarians started making arbitrary judgements as to what is "good English" and "bad English", based on a kind of pseudo-"logic" deduced from the Latin language, that has nothing whatever to do with English. (See the 1975 journal article by Anne Bodine in the bibliography.) And even after the old-line grammarians put it under their ban, this anathematized singular "their" construction never stopped being used by English-speakers, both orally and by serious literary writers. So it's time for anyone who still thinks that singular "their" is so-called "bad grammar" to get rid of their prejudices and pedantry!
A brief history of singular "their" (etc.)
The following is a brief potted history of this construction:
In Old English, the masculine gender was used as the "unmarked" default for some purposes, but the problem of which pronouns to use with an indefinite singular antecedent (which can refer to both men and women) did not exist in quite the same way that it does in more recent English. This is because in Old English there was a system of arbitrary "grammatical gender", in which nouns were assigned a gender which was often independent of the biological sex (if any) of the noun's referent (as also happens in modern German, French etc.), and articles, demonstratives, and adjectives (as well as third person singular pronouns) all took on different forms according to the grammatical gender of the noun words they accompanied. It was apparently in early Middle English, with the transition to a system of "natural gender" (in which the third person singular pronouns are almost the only surviving linguistic markers of gender, and they are basically used in accordance with the biological sex of the referents of their antecedent nouns), that there arose the pronominal "generic masculine" construction as such -- in which it is only by a separate convention (somewhat isolated from regular rules of pronoun agreement) that masculine pronouns are used in sentences of the type "Everybody loves his own mother".
However, not long afterwards the "singular their" construction ("Everybody loves their own mother") also came into existence, and is attested starting in the late 1300's. So from the fourteenth century on, both "singular their" and the pronominal generic masculine existed in English, and were two competing solutions for the same problem.
From then on, "singular their" was used without much inhibition (see the examples from the OED) and was not generally considered "bad grammar". It is true that starting in the 16th century, when English grammar began to be a subject of study, some rules of Latin grammar were applied to English; and that the Latin-based rules of grammatical agreement might have been seen as forbidding the English singular "their" construction -- if they were interpreted in a certain linguistically naïve way. (This may explain why certain classical-language-influenced authors, such as the translators of the King James Bible, tended to use singular "their" somewhat infrequently -- but see Phillipians 2:3.) However, the earliest specific condemnation of singular "their" that Bodine was able to find (in her 1975 article) dated only from 1795 (more than two centuries after English grammar started being taught, and at least several decades after the beginning of the 18th century "grammar boom").
So it seems that it was only in the late 18th century or early 19th century, when prescriptive grammarians started attacking singular "their" because this didn't seem to them to accord with the "logic" of the Latin language, that it began to be more or less widely taught that the construction was bad grammar. The prohibition against singular "their" then joined the other arbitrary prescriptions created from naïve analogies between English and Latin -- such as the prohibition against ending a sentence with a preposition.
But through the 19th and 20th centuries, singular "their" has still continued to be used by a number of even somewhat "literary" authors, as well as commonly in the speech of even many educated individuals.
It is interesting that almost as soon as the banning of singular "their" by grammarians and schoolteachers had gained some degree of acceptance (making many feel that the singular "their" construction was out of place in writing), some people began feeling dissatisfaction with the other alternatives which were permitted by the arbitrary edicts of prescriptive grammarians. So already in 1808/1809, noted author Samuel Taylor Coleridge seems to have rejected "generic masculine" he in some cases (as not being appropriately gender-neutral) -- and since he apparently did not consider singular "their" to be permissible, and probably felt that "he or she" was too cumbersome (especially in repetition), he settled on "it" as the only available solution, as discussed in the following passage:
QUÆRE -- whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or representative, to the word "Person", where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch, or noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words, as -- "not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given" -- instead of -- "wherein he or she has offended". In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of "Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom.
-- Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge (1895), p. 190. ["Homo" and "mensch" are Latin and German words which mean `man' in a general sex-neutral sense, as opposed to "vir" and "mann", which mean `man' in the specifically masculine sense.]
Similarly, dissatisfaction with generic "he" and the other prescriptively-allowed alternatives led to proposals for neologistic English gender-neutral singular human pronoun words beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, as can be seen at Dennis Baron's "Word that Failed" page.
Singular "their" and linguistic sexism in English
Recently, various new constructions or new words have been proposed to mitigate perceived English linguistic sexism; these are innovations, and must be evaluated as such. But singular "their" (etc.) is not an innovation, but old established good usage. So here anti-sexism and traditional English usage go hand-in-hand -- and those who object to singular "their" can find no support from history, linguistics, or the aim of inclusive language.
Already in 1894, the famed grammarian and linguist Otto Jespersen (who was decidedly not a feminist himself) wrote in his book Progress in Language: With Special Reference to English (§24) that "it is at times a great inconvenience to be obliged to specify the sex of the person spoken about. [...] if a personal pronoun of common gender was substituted for he in such a proposition as this: `It would be interesting if each of the leading poets would tell us what he considers his best work', ladies would be spared the disparaging implication that the leading poets were all men." (so that it can hardly be claimed that a concern about such matters is only a recent outgrowth of 1970's feminism or so-called "PC" ideology).
Conditions on the use of singular "their" etc.
Contrary to what some people apparently believe -- that as soon as speakers deviate in the slightest degree from the prescriptive rules inculcated in schools, the English language then begins to spontaneously degenerate into a chaos of incoherent mumbles -- there are actually clearly-defined patterns in the use of singular "their" etc. Such plural pronouns can only be used with a morphologically and syntactically singular antecedent when what it refers to is semantically collective and/or generic and/or indefinite and/or unknown. (A lack of knowledge about the gender of what is referred to, or an "epicene" reference to both genders or indefinitely to either, will in many cases help to make the use of singular "their" sound acceptable, by contributing to such semantic indeterminacy; however, note that unspecified gender is actually neither a necessary or sufficient condition for use of singular "their" -- see below for non-"epicene" examples of this construction.)
Where singular "their" cannot be used is when referring to a strongly-individualized single person about whom there is some specific information. So the following attempt at pronominal reference would fail, even if one did not know (or did not wish to reveal) the sex of "Chris": "Chris was born on February, 25th 1963, the youngest of three siblings, is 5 feet 9 inches tall with red hair, graduated from Slippery Rock college, is currently working as an accountant, has never married, and is fond of listening to jazz. They..." (This shows that singular "they"/"them"/"their" cannot be used in all cases of unknown or indefinite gender.)
These semantic factors are gradient, which is why some speakers find "their" etc. which refers back to an indefinite pronoun such as "anybody" more acceptable than cases of "their" etc. referring back to a singular concrete noun. So in the great majority of cases in Jane Austen's writings, singular "their" has indefinite pronouns or quantifier words as its antecedent; there are also a few cases of "a person", "any young person", and "any man" as the antecedent, but no cases of a more specific noun phrase as the antecedent (except perhaps one case of "any acquaintance" embedded in a parallel coordinate construction). (It is significant that in one of the two cases I have found of the generic masculine construction in Jane Austen the antecedent is "the reader", with a definite article and a concrete noun.)
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