Personal Pronouns

[Joseph Method]

It's not _totally_ ridiculous. "If a doctor has cured many patients,
he will make more money," leads ineluctably to "So I was talking to my
doctor today." "Yes, what did he say?"

But, yeah. The true gender-neutral pronoun is "one",  not "they", only
the English ear can't stand it for very long. I think the general
correct convention is to alternate appropriately, by section or
example. So don't be inconsistent within the same example.

He/she is clunky and artificial.

Alternatively, you could create two user characters, Larry and Ming :).

On 3/8/06, 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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--
-J. Method