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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: Re: 'they' as third person singular indefinate sex pronoun
Message-ID: <920@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jan-85 17:00:10 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.920
Posted: Sat Jan 12 17:00:10 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Jan-85 01:01:05 EST
References: <488@mhuxt.UUCP>
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Xref: watmath net.women:4079 net.nlang:2399

> 
>     I've been following the discussion here about the use of 'they' instead
> of 'he' as a third person singular indefinate sex pronoun, and as I was 
> writing an article recently, I needed just such a pronoun.  I thought:
> "What the heck, let's try out this 'they' word."; and did.  The results
> were less than satisfying.  This is the phrase I ended up with:
>    " is anonymous;  if they finds out where I live, will
> they come bomb my house?"

This has a more serious error: you want it to be subjunctive.

	" is anonymous; if they were to find out
		where I live, would they bomb my house?"

Not so bad, is it?
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam