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From: steven@boring.uucp (Steven Pemberton)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: "he or she" - a grammatical problem solved
Message-ID: <6826@boring.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 12:13:24 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6826
Posted: Wed Mar 12 12:13:24 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 22:34:09 EST
References: <2859@amdahl.UUCP> <278@stl.UUCP>
Reply-To: steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 25
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax

In article <278@stl.UUCP> jvc@stl.UUCP (Vic Churchill) writes:
> 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.
This is a good example where one doesn't use it, because the speaker clearly
knows the gender of the person referred to. However, I have often remarked
on conversations such as the following: "A friend of mine tried the same
thing!" "Oh really? Did they succeed?".

Here's a quote from a recent author, referring to a single person of
indeterminate sex:

DORIS LESSING And how easy the way a man or woman would come in here, glance
around, find smiles and pleasant looks waiting for them, then wave and sit
down by themselves.

Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax.uucp.