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Subject:Re: use of he/she/they From:Sella Rush <SellaR -at- APPTECHSYS -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 12 Aug 1997 13:11:46 -0700
I want to get my vote in early because I bet there are gonna be some
interesting differences of opinion on this one.
Yes, there is a rule out there that pronouns should match the
antecedents. There's also a rule out there (still used, still pushed)
that "man" means both men and women and "he" means he or she. There
used to be a rule out there that the male of anything went before the
female because that was the "natural position" of man (that's why it now
*seems* more natural to say "brother and sister", "man and wife", "Mr.
and Mrs.").
But as we've discussed before, english is changing (rules are relaxing?)
and some of those changes have to do with gender awareness. Personally,
I like using "they", rather than "he or she" or some random
switching--or just one (I don't like to see all "he"s so I don't want to
use all "she"s--and I really don't like having to reword to avoid if it
results in really nasty constructions or something that doesn't fit the
rest of the text.
When I took a grammar class as part of a TC program about 18 months ago,
we discussed the use of "they". The instructor (Jan Spiradakis at UW)
mentioned that a number of people were beginning to use this alternative
and thought that there might be a future for it, but that it was a bit
too radical for her. Heck, I always wanted to be a radical at
something, so here I am.
For the record, I
*never use "he or she", "she or he", "she/he"--too awkward, slows the
flow
*will first look for a painless way to reword
*happily use a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sella Rush mailto:sellar -at- apptechsys -dot- com
Applied Technical Systems, Inc. (ATS)
Bremerton, Washington USA
Developers of the CCM Database
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