Condescend
The currentof our previous sense of behavior that "betrays a feeling of superiority" is very recent—the first instances is from Fraser's Magazine in 1853: "Not a soul in Market Northorpe ventured to look down upon Mistress Joan, no, nor to condescend to her."
The now obsolete literal meaning when the borrowing from French is first recorded in 1485—"To come down, go down, descend." An equally old extension is "To come or bend down . . . from on's position of dignity or pride; to step voluntarily and graciously; to deign." That sense appears in accounts of the doctrine of Incarnation in Christian theology. Dr .Johnson's eighteenth-century definition is "To depart from the privileges of superiority by a voluntary submission; to sink willingly to equal terms with inferiours,"
Patronize
The last word in Johnson's definition gives us the clue to the changes of meaning in both words. We can patronize a store, but shouldn't patronize a person. Early uses included a neutral or even positive sense to giving patronage to a person or cause. A now obsolete sense is explicitly positive: "3.a. . . .To defend, support, or stand up for; to act as an advocate for. . . . Jesus "patronizeth his Disciplies, plucking the eares of Corne (wheat, as we saw last time)." Jefferson said proper officials were "Appointed by their country to patronize their rights." The senses that reflect current usage are first documented in the nineteenth century, another hint as to the cultural effects of political change.
they as in "a woman must watch their back when using pronouns."
It was requested that we return to this presently occurring culturally driven change—have people come up with new thoughts? Is our discomfort like that people may have felt when the second person singular word was replaced by the plural, for the different cultural reasons we talked about last time?