----Original Message---- From: Angus Leeming [mailto:angus.leeming@btopenworld.com] Sent: 04 November 2005 11:13 To: boost@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [boost] Gender neutral documentation
Anthony Williams wrote:
The use of "she" implies the person in question is female. Though "he" technically also has the implication that the person is male, it is general usage that "he" is used as a stand in for "he or she". If we really want to be gender neutral, we should write "he or she", which is what we really mean. Sometimes this is abbreviated "s/he", but that's an ugly kludge. Better would be to rewrite the sentence to avoid the issue.
My personal preference is to use "they" as the first person singular gender-neutral pronoun. This will be /intensely/ irritating to grammar purists, but does seem to be the way the language is evolving.
I don't like this, but it is preferable to "she".
We do have a pronoun for just such a usage, albeit one that appears to be used today only by the British royal family. Perhaps it sounds archaic, but one understands what one is talking about when one uses the correct language.
We do. However what one *meant* to write was: One's personal preference is to use "they" as the *THIRD* person singular gender-neutral pronoun. As used by the British royal family, "one" is a first person singular pronoun.
Regards from yet another Brit, :-)
-- Martin Bonner Martin.Bonner@Pitechnology.com Pi Technology, Milton Hall, Ely Road, Milton, Cambridge, CB4 6WZ, ENGLAND Tel: +44 (0)1223 441434