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From: jvc@stl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: "he or she" - a grammatical problem solved
Message-ID: <278@stl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Mar-86 13:31:00 EST
Article-I.D.: stl.278
Posted: Thu Mar  6 13:31:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 08:36:21 EST
References: <2859@amdahl.UUCP>
Reply-To: jvc@stl.UUCP (Vic Churchill)
Organization: STL,Harlow,UK.
Lines: 19
Keywords: he she they it
Summary: one anybody |= many anybodies

Much controversy over "he/she" vs. "they" etc; finally 
Meertens quotes the OED:
 " ... made universal by every/any/no, etc. ..." ;
similarly G.A.Moffett :
 "often used ... after each every either neither no one ...";

There is surely a difference between the case where the
sentence refers to an indeterminate number of persons from a
mixed collection ("everybody brought their own lunch";
"anybody who does that deserves everything they get"), where
the implication is that there may be more than one of them,
and the case where we are referring to one person of
uncertain gender ("when the user types ctrl-S their terminal
stops output"). I maintain that the latter case is not
justified by the historical citations given. 

Must go now, my manager says they want me to see them.

   Vic Churchill (jvc@stl  ...!mcvax!ukc!stl!jvc  +44-279-29531 x 2546)