[Gllug] Monthly GLLUG grammar report (Seriously OT now!)
John Winters
john at linuxemporium.co.uk
Tue Nov 26 15:09:13 UTC 2002
On Tue, 2002-11-26 at 14:18, Dylan wrote:
> On Tuesday 26 November 2002 14:00, John Winters wrote:
[snip]
> > As a parallel, the language seems to be reaching the point where "they"
> > is acceptable as a singular pronoun for an individual of unknown sex.
> > OTOH, it will still grate with some people and can usually be avoided
> > tidily simply by re-arranging the sentence.
>
> Surely you'd agree that use of they as singular is preferable to the earlier
> (and still remaining) he or she circumlocutions, or even worse (s)he?
Of those two I'm not sure which is worse. Both will annoy someone. I
was advocating avoiding the problem by not putting yourself in the
position of having to use either.
John
--
The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux in the UK
See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/
We had a woodhenge here once but it rotted.
--
Gllug mailing list - Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug
More information about the GLLUG
mailing list