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From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Subject: Re: Pronouns devoid of gender connotations
Message-ID: <534@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 13:38:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.534
Posted: Thu Jul 11 13:38:33 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 00:52:13 EDT
References: <2718@decwrl.UUCP> <498@rtech.UUCP>  <1609@dciem.UUCP> <431@mtxinu.UUCP>
Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcb.UUCP (The Polymath)
Organization: The Cat Factory
Lines: 23
Xref: linus net.nlang:3074 net.women:5931

In article <431@mtxinu.UUCP> ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) writes:
>>>7)  Use "she" and "he" alternately or randomly from one work to
>>>    another, or from one passage to another.
>
>Even this doesn't always work, however.  An introductory programming
>text written at Berkeley a few years ago used the pronouns interchangably,
>and randomly assigned them with a program.  Somehow, whenever a bad
>example was given - deliberately to illustrate a point - the pronoun
>came out "she", or so it seemed.

I once had to use a textbook where  the  genders  were  simply  alternated,
sometimes  within  the  same  sentence.  The effect was _very_ distracting.
Having to deal with a subject that changes sex three times in one  sentence
slows  the  reading and information absorption process enormously (at least
it did for me), probably because it's so unexpected and unusual.
---
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The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe)
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