Personal Pronouns

[GrAnT GaLbRaiTh]

I've never heard of 'he' being used as a gender neutral pronoun and have
always used the 'he/she' in this context.  I've also heard of 'they' being
deemed as acceptable in this context but find that difficult to come to
terms with.

As an alternative the whole message could be changed to the plural - 'when
users request'

On 3/9/06, Rocco Stanzione <grasshopper at linuxkungfu.org> wrote:
>
> I'm taking a break from editing the serverguide until somebody can give me
> some guidance on this:
>
>              For example, when a user requests the page
>              http://www.example.com/this_directory/, they are going to
>              get either the DirectoryIndex page if it exists, or a
>              server-generated directory list.
>
> The word "they" here deeply offends purists such as myself.  "They" is
> plural,
> of course, and it's a pronoun referring here to a singular user.  To my
> chagrin, many authoritative bodies have begun calling this abomination
> "acceptable", but as far as I know they have not gone so far as to call it
> correct.  Traditionally, "he" is the correct word here (followed by "is",
> of
> course), to be interpreted as a gender-neutral pronoun in this
> context.  I've
> seen the use of "she" to maintain agreement with the subject without
> offending the (ridiculous) sensitivities of those who find gender
> persecution
> in the structure of the language.  I'm fine with this if everyone else is,
> but I prefer "he".
>
> Whatever the answer to this is, it should probably be added to the
> styleguide.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rocco Stanzione
>
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>



--

Grant Galbraith
manicka at ubuntu.com
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