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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: 'he' vs 'they' vs 'one'; a third opinion
Message-ID: <304@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-May-85 08:23:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.304
Posted: Wed May  1 08:23:36 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-May-85 01:38:17 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 21

The following extracted from William Safire's "On Language" column
in the Sunday New York Times Magazine (4/28 issue):

	"...'his or her' sounds overly legalistic or overly concerned with
	a need to avoid sexism in speech....How do you avoid it?

	One of two ways. The easiest way is to remember the phrase 'the male
	embraces the female' and to stick with words like 'mankind' rather
	than the labored 'humankind'. On that theory, when you come to a
	construction like 'Every single one should watch "his" pronoun agreement',
	you are not coerced into saying 'Every single one should watch "his or
	her" pronoun agreement' or being forced into the error of 'Every single
	one should watch "their" pronoun agreement'.

	The other way, if you happen to be chatting with Betty Friedan, is to
	recast the sentence: 'All of us should watch "our" pronoun agreement'.
	Avoid the his/her problem by changing the subject person to people...."

Food for thought.

Marcel Simon