The question is moot.

Plus I am anxious about the future.

otoh

Video capture of the Böcker Agilo descending with two thieves and the loot.

beats me why the 🐝 won't accept eocene.

Now that I've had time to check here's what I wrote back in 1990. BTW, in a conference talk I gave about this in the 1980s, session chair John Algeo, who was then editor of American Speech, changed my title from "A historic..." to "An historic." Which only goes to show how entrenched this was.

he may have even written "an Chasidic Jew"

Was it Jimmy Breslin in The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight who wrote the phrase "an Hasidic Jew"?

It's that old marketplace of ideas, where the shopkeeper always has a thumb on the scale.

not to mention the 1% of atheists who are expecting him any minute. but sure. whatever.

Xword first ran in the New York Times on July 23, 1951, p. 15. h/t Ben Zimmer.

This was the S F Chronicle June 22 1955

And this earlier crossword, from the Brooklyn Eagle in 1930, asks readers for three, count 'em, three, genderless pronouns.

Thon was coined by C.C. Converse as early as 1858 and in use since it was publicized in 1884. Although well past its prime, thon did have advocates through the 1970s. The puzzle is credited to the NY Times but did not run on that day, June 22, or on the day before.