Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar
From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Pronouns devoid of gender connotations
Message-ID: <760@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 00:00:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.760
Posted: Tue Jul  2 00:00:31 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jul-85 07:41:26 EDT
References: <2718@decwrl.UUCP> <337@spar.UUCP> <6473@boring.UUCP>, <371@spar.UUCP>
Organization: U Chicago -- Linguistics Dept
Lines: 39

From: michael@spar.UUCP (Not Bill Joy)
Message-ID: <371@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 04:11:51 CDT
    
>     Somebody else: We have hired a new programmer.
>     Me:	   	   What day do they start? And do they know C?
>     
>     Incorrect? Yes. But it is handy, understandable, and natural, especially
>     to those who have not allowed themselves to be brainwashed by so many
>     grammar texts. 
      ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^

...
>     No doubt, you can show me some way to reword `my' response.  And that
>     would miss the point. English already has a sex-ambiguous third person
>     anaphoric pronoun. It has been in colloquial use for a long time -- in
>     spite of the condemnation of grammarians. 
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> -michael


michael --
      {I'm quite in agreement with you about 'they', and have posted to
     that effect}

But, wait a minute!  Hold my horses!  There are plenty of us who consider
ourselves grammarians, and use grammar texts, without being prescriptive /
normative grammarians in most ways.  Don't tar with such a wide brush.
      Not that I take the absolutist attitude about this that was common in
linguistics not too long ago.  It's reasonable to take an interest in the
direction the language develops, and to like some changes and dislike others.
What's added to that from the descriptive perspective (which apparently
you share) is just that it's not a moral issue, and language change is
not a matter of `degeneration'.  

-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar