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From: marcus@pyuxt.UUCP (M. G. Hand)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: "Their" as a substitute for his/her
Message-ID: <236@pyuxt.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Jan-85 14:47:34 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxt.236
Posted: Wed Jan  9 14:47:34 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jan-85 23:19:01 EST
References: <1108@teddy.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 21

In Message-ID: <1108@teddy.UUCP> mlf@teddy.UUCP (Matt L. Fichtenbaum) states:

> sentences such as "everyone should sign their name" are _wrong_.

yes! "everyone should sign their names... when they arrive."  :-)

Actually, although its not strictly grammatically correct to mix these
singulars and plurals, it is accepted usage and has been so by all but
pernicketty (sp?) latin masters for over a hundred years.  I think that
the sound or readiability of a sentence is important: often the ambiguities
are resolved by context and never arise.  Unless you're writing a legal
document their and they are quite acceptable ways of avoiding he/she,
and the stilted one's.

(But, anyway, wouldn't one who assumed that "he" did not include the female
also assume that "they" applied to that same group? Ie. the reader makes an
assumption early in the document about whom the document refers)

-- 

		Marcus Hand	{ihnp4!}pyuxt!marcus