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I've read and heard that you can use they/their to refer to the person singular (someone, whoever, a student) when you don't know the gender of the person. Is it stand English to only use he/his?
Ex.: Whoever wants to get his hair cut should come with me.
A good student does his homework.
No one forgets his own name.
Thanks
In modern English, you should use they/their, which is called "singular they." You heard correctly: you can use these when the gender is unknown or when you don't want to grammatically assign a gender.
Whoever wants to get their hair cut should come with me.
A good student does their homework.
No one forgets their own name.
It's common to find "he/his" as gender-unkown pronouns in older writing -- the older the more common -- but this is now decidedly out of favor.
One also occasionally finds "she/her" as gender-unknown pronouns. This was a trend that gained popularity in the age of gender bias recognition and awakening and is still followed, but "they/their" are quickly becoming most standard.
