I went to a training course on business writing because I feel it's always good to brush up on my grammar. Subject/verb agreement came up, and this lead to the ever-troubling pronoun to match with "everybody."
The instructor reiterated the classic rule that you say, "everybody will hand in his," or "everybody will hand in his or her." I've noticed lately that there are people pushing for allowing for, "everybody will hand in their." In short, with a lack of a generic pronoun (since calling a person an "it" is considered rude), many are arguing that "they" should be used as a generic singular pronoun.
Her response to this was interesting. She said that while this passes muster in America, it's when you get into the international community that this can cause issues. This makes some sense. After all, when a nonnatives learn English, they are taught rigorously the rules of the language, and I'm sure that they aren't taught that "they" is singular. English is confusing enough as it is.
You're the only international community I'm a part of that I trust and respect, so I pose this to non-Americans. Does this assessment ring true with you? Is using "they" as singular perplexing? Is this only an American thing?
The instructor also said that only in America do we consider using, "he or she." The other nations (even Canada) only use "he" as a generic singular pronoun. Any experiences in that?