Don Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 18 Jun 2008, MJ Ray wrote: > > When reasonably possible, phrase things in such a way to avoid > > assuming gender, or switch some examples, but don't assume that the > > Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true or use it to justify the sort of > > language errors that certain debian-women members advocate in > > English. > > There's no inherent error in using singular they. It may not agree > with your perception of style or seem awkward to you, but many > grammarians are on both sides, and singular they has enough traction > in modern English to be acceptable. As users of a language, we can > quite easily decide that a single word will fill in for both singular > and plural pronouns of indeterminate gender. [...]
Simply restating things doesn't make them any truer. There is no English Academy which can settle this for us. Using the usually-plural "they" for a singular of indeterminate gender confuses non-native speakers, as mentioned in the previously-linked thread. Please read the old thread and bring only new points, or simply avoid using "they" for singulars. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
