On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Cat wrote:
>
> On this topic of -ess endings, interestingly enough Miss Manners had
> something to say about it in her most recent column. I actually agree
> with some of her points -- what do you all think?
>
> http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/12/146l-011200-idx.html
>
> I mean, isn't taking the male word as the neuter word doing the
> same thing as using mankind vs humankind? I personally dislike the fact
> that 'he' and 'his' are supposed to be used when referring to a possible
> person of either gender. I really enjoyed my operating systems class last
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So what would you like? "Its" wouldn't be nice to both genders, I suppose.
But inventing a "fourth" gender which means both real genders isn't
feasible, too? You would confuse us non-native English speakers and we'd
probably turn to Esperanto instead :-).
> semester, where every reference to a user or programmer was 'she' and
> 'her'.
I try to balance the use of masculine and feminine pronouns or use the
neutral (but not necessarily neuter) "one" and "one's". Until lately
I wrote "(s)he" and "her/his" but this breaks the reading flow.
Nils
--
Nils Philippsen / Berliner Straße 39 / D-71229 Leonberg // +49.7152.209647
[EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offence. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
