Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site mtxinu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!unisoft!mtxinu!ed From: ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women Subject: Re: Gender-specific responses to s/he Message-ID: <238@mtxinu.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 23:06:00 EST Article-I.D.: mtxinu.238 Posted: Sun Jan 6 23:06:00 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 05:41:51 EST References: <218@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA> Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley, CA Lines: 33 Xref: watmath net.nlang:2335 net.women:3987 > From: sun!sunny@DECWRL.ARPA (Sunny Kirsten) > >Try using "their" whether referring to one generic person or many persons: > >it's easier to read than he/she or his/her, and is gender non-specific. > > Sunny > > No, no, no! Please! *cringe* > > Not that I can speak for women in > general, but I prefer "he" to "their" by several orders of magnitude, and I > think that all this "he/she", "he or she", and "s/he" nonsense is more > distracting than useful. > > -Dragon > -- > UUCP: ...seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!lll-crg!dragon > ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg I found the use of "their" in the singular distasteful when I first heard it, too. Now that I've gotten used to it, I like it just fine. I still don't use it for most written things; there I rephrase things to be neuter in different ways - usually by writing in the plural whenever possible. Overall, I'm glad that I put up with a minor distaste for a while. It allows me to be happier about the way I talk about non-gender specific third persons. I agree, too, that the multi-specific forms (he/she, s/he, et. al.) are too distracting to be useful. -- Ed Gould mt Xinu, 739 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94710 USA {ucbvax,decvax}!mtxinu!ed +1 415 644 0146 (I'd rather not be parochial.)