An unfortunate
pseudo-word that's entered the
lexicon as the result of the
political correctness movement, and the fact that most English-speakers are too
lazy to want to write or read
he or she every time a
neutered pronoun needs to be used. When read aloud, this must be translated back to
he or she (a
noun phrase which is annoying enough by itself, as it is often
homosyllabic with the noun it is supposed to denote; ie,
he or she wears socks, as opposed to
the person wears socks). Its
sister forms include
he/she and
s/he.
Of course, we really ought to break down and just start using "it", but for some reason the pronoun "it" has come to connote something lower than humans on our great Hierarchy of All Things, so people get offended when you refer to them as an "it".