Personal Pronouns

[Joseph Method]

Oh, man. It's that everybody/anybody/nobody business. But note how
they are different from the original case:

            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.

Nice selections!

On 3/14/06, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt at myrealbox.com> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 2006, at 9:57 PM, Rocco Stanzione wrote:
> > ...
> > 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.
> > ...
>
>      She kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everybody ought
>      to do who falls into deep water in their clothes.
>
>               -- C. S. Lewis, /The voyage of the Dawn Treader/ (1952)
>
>      Now, nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing.
>
>                      -- John Ruskin, /The crown of wild olive/ (1867)
>
>      It would hardly be early in November; there were generally
>      delays, a bad passage or something; that favouring something
>      which every body who shuts their eyes while they look, or their
>      understandings while they reason, feels the comfort of.
>
>                            -- Jane Austen, /Mansfield Park/ (c. 1813)
>
>      Every Body fell a laughing, as how could they help it.
>
>                                 -- Henry Fielding, /Tom Jones/ (1749)
>
>      ... every fool can do as they're bid.
>
>                       -- Jonathan Swift, /Polite conversation/ (1738)
>
>      There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
>      As if I were their well-acquainted friend
>
>                     -- William Shakespeare, /Comedy of errors/ (1594)
>
>      Yf... a psalme scape ony persone, or a lesson, or else yt.
>      they omyt one verse or twayne.
>
>                                             -- Wynkyn de Worde (1526)
>
>      Eche of theym sholde ... make theymselfe redy.
>
>              -- William Caxton, /The foure sonnes of Aymon/ (c. 1489)
>
>      And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame
>      They wol come up...
>
>              -- Geoffrey Chaucer, /The pardoner's prologue/ (c. 1395)
>
> --
> Matthew Paul Thomas
> http://mpt.net.nz/
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-doc mailing list
> ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-doc
>


--
-J. Method