Re: S/he discussion

["Knox, Phebe" <pknox -at- CADMUS -dot- COM>]

          Colleen Dancer says at her shop they finesse the gender
          problem by using examples with people's names, and just
          switching genders that way. That sounds like a good
          practice, if the material lends itself to the "story"-type
          of examples.
          But I wanted to bring up my least favorite way of dealing
          with the problem, even worse than s/he: I just read a book
          in which the author simply switched pronouns every few
          paragraphs. No attempt at a write-around; just referred to
          psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. as "he" for awhile then
          as "she" for awhile. It had the effect of my never being
          able to forget about the gender/language issue and
          concentrate on the subject of the book, because I was
          constantly wrenched back to the issue of "fairness." I'd
          recommend we don't follow that route, anyway.

          Phebe Knox               pknox -at- cadmus -dot- com