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From: lau@kings.wharton.upenn.edu (Yan K. Lau)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Sexist (the program)
Message-ID: <27645@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 31 Jul 90 18:18:45 GMT
References: <4286@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <-286629990@hpcupt1.HP.COM>
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: lau@kings.wharton.upenn.edu (Yan K. Lau)
Organization: A Private Heaven
Lines: 31

In article <-286629990@hpcupt1.HP.COM> swh@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Steve Harrold) writes:
>>>> I believe there is a program called sexist that locates phrases and words
>>>> that do not belong in the New-English. If anyone has a public-domain/free
>                                              ^^^^^^
>>>> copy of this that they would like to give away, could they mail me. I will
>                      ^^^^                                ^^^^
>>>> ask the closest person to mail me the source.
>
>Ah, but does this program catch grammatical errors committed to avoid
>sexist pronouns, such as above?  :-)

I know there is a smiley attached to this so I won't get too worked up over it
but I hope the use of "they" was intentional in the sentence.  There is a very
good discussion of the problems and the origins of using "he" in _The Handbook
of Nonsexist Writing_ by Casey Miller and Kate Swift.

    "Once upon a time you was a plural pronoun only.  It assumed its
     singular function (replacing thou) in the days before prescriptive
     grammarians were around to inhibit that kind of change.  English
     needs a comparable third person singular pronoun and, for many,
     they meets the need:"

The book is very good and has suggestions for getting around the pronoun
problem.  Unfortunately, using "they" doesn't seem to be generally accepted.
I always wonder if I should point out that the use is intentional.


Yan.
   )~  Yan K. Lau    lau@kings.wharton.upenn.edu      The Wharton School
 ~/~   -Sheenaphile-          128.91.11.233       University of Pennsylvania
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