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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!akgub!cylixd!charli
From: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: "he or she" - a grammatical problem solved
Message-ID: <830@cylixd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 16:53:24 EST
Article-I.D.: cylixd.830
Posted: Wed Mar  5 16:53:24 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 07:20:52 EST
References: <2859@amdahl.UUCP>
Reply-To: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Organization: RCA Cylix Communications , Memphis, TN
Lines: 51

In article <2859@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes:
>I am posting this in response to the re-arrisen controvery in net.nlang
>about the use of 'they' and 'their' in such statements as: "Everyone
>does as they think best" verses "Everyone does as he or she thinks best."

Well, I tried to stay out of it, but......

I *KNOW* you can find *LOTS* of precedents for "they" as genderless
singular pronoun.  Precedents can be found for practically any
construction or locution.  That doesn't change the fact that "ain't",
"between you and I", and the singular "they" all sound sloppy, careless,
and illiterate in formal writing or speech.  And s/he, he/she, and all 
of the other patronizing creations that I have seen are even worse.

Of course, it depends on what you want from language.  If you want to
say something and don't care how, just as long as you get the point
across, feel free to say "ain't" and "a person...they".  We'll all know
what you mean.  A wooden shack with a tin roof keeps your head as dry
as a cathedral.

The problem is, of course, that writers and speakers *need* a singular
pronoun of indefinite gender, and they need one that doesn't offend
their sensibilities.  The singular "they" and "he/she" both offend
nearly every writer that I know.  "He" for a person of unkown gender is
likely to offend the reader.  So what is a writer to do?

He can, of course, solve the problem in part by casting a sentence in
the plural to start with, or in the passive voice, but sometimes the
indefiniteness of the plural and passive takes all the color and life
out of a piece of writing.  So he returns to the singular and to the
problem.

He can, of course, use the singular "they", but this solution seems
entirely unsatisfactory.  And I think there is a better solution:
eliminate remaining vestiges of grammatical gender.  

This has been going on, slowly, for the past hundred years or more 
anyway.  Words that were once considered feminine have disappeared, and
the formerly masculine form is now considered gender-neutral.  The only
place that gender is left is in pronouns, courtesy titles, and an
occassional job-title.  When was the last time a woman received a
"Mistress of Arts" degree, anyway?  My grandmother was awarded one from
the University of Mississippi over half a century ago.  ("Master" was
then a strictly masculine word.  It would have been inconceivable to
call a woman a "master" of anything!)  When was the last time anyone
called a woman who writes poetry a "poetess"? Or a woman who is a pilot
an "aviatrix"?  Those forms have died.  Why don't we simply do away
with the remaining grammatical gender as well?

	regards,
		Charli Phillips