On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:02:05PM +0200, Tobias Toedter wrote: > On Wednesday 04 August 2004 00:59, Matt Kraai wrote: > > I've fixed the incorrect usages in the pages you listed (except > > for one in a DPL candidate's platform). It would be helpful if > > someone checked the rest of the site. > > First of all, thank you for this effort. However, English is not my first > language, that's why I wonder if it's common to use "they", "them", and > "their" when referring to a single person.
It's a reasonably common workaround for the lack of a real non-gender-specific third-person singular pronoun in English, yes, and has been in use as such for centuries. There are occasional debates about its grammatical correctness, but I believe that it sounds natural to most native speakers. > At least in German this would be highly unusual (to say the least; I'd > rather consider this a mistake). I'd expect translators to handle it in whatever way is appropriate in their language. > Take this sentence for example (from vote/howto_proposal.wml): > > "This is to prevent the Project Secretary from missing a proposal in the > huge volumes of mail generated on some of our lists and to prevent them > from having to subscribe to each and every list created by the Project." > > The Project Secretary is just one person, not a group. Is it still correct > to use "them"? I'm sorry to bother you with this, it's just that I've never > seen or heard such sentences. That sentence doesn't feel at all unusual to me. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
