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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!randy
From: randy@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: generic pronouns revisited - a personal tale
Message-ID: <2731@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Sep-83 17:04:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2731
Posted: Sun Sep 25 17:04:30 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Sep-83 01:21:13 EDT
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 31

Lest you think that usenet discussions never affect anyone in *real*
life, consider the following true story.  I was working on a
near-final draft of my dissertation when the generic pronoun
discussion (he/she/it) was raging here.  I'd always defaulted to
'he' in previous writings.  In large part due to the net.women
discussion, I tried something new.  I went carefully through the
thesis, rewriting perhaps 3/4 of the occurrences so no pronouns
were necessary at all.  Then, for the remainder, I alternated 'he'
and 'she'.  It seemed strange at first, but I'm happy with the
results.

Now, I recall some netter saying that use of generic 'he' was
particularly inappropriate for readers who visually bring to mind
the image of a "generic" person when reading, since they will
naturally default to a male.  If you don't believe this happens to
you, try the following:  when you're next jotting notes (to be
later turned into a paper), and arrive at a natural use of generic
'he', like the following:

		"At this point the system's user has two choices.
		He can either ..."

try using 'she' instead.  If you're male, I especially recommend
this.  I find it far more pleasant to imagine my system's "generic"
user as a female rather than a male.     :-)

			- Randy
-- 
Randy Trigg
...!seismo!umcp-cs!randy (Usenet)
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