Debate : 59


Off-Topic / Debate / 59	58 \| 60

Subject:	Re: Spam from Andreas Stabno
Newsgroups:	lugnet.general, lugnet.market.auction, lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date:	Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:39:24 GMT
Reply-To:	mattdm@mattdm{IHateSpam}.org
Viewed:	33 times

Jesse Long <LongJR97@hotmail.com> wrote: > Proper English uses a masculine pronoun when there is an unknown person > involved, or requires the longer "he or she." If the unknown person > involved must be a female, then the use of the female pronoun is correct. > The politically correct, touchy-feely, kindler, gentler, "English for > Dummies" that is evolving would allow the gender-neutral plural "they" as an > acceptable substitute for a singular pronoun of unknown gender. I used to hate this. But, after taking several years of German, I feel a lot better. Why? I realized that German 'recycles' a lot of pronouns for various uses. For example, "sie" is "she", "they", and the formal "you". So I figure, why not allow "they" to be recycled in this way in English? While I think in general "politically correct" language gets ridiculous quickly, I can see the point in the case of using "he" when really not intending to specify gender. And the phrase "he or she" is too clumsy for common usuage -- and gets repetitive when used in writing. A lot of PC doublespeak has the intention of obscuring meaning. I'm opposed to that. Using 'they' as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, however, helps one say what one means in a concise and natural manner. -- Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/

Message has 1 Reply:

		Re: Spam from Andreas Stabno
Could we possibly move this topic back to another NG? I feel that it is a rather non-Lego subject and could be put into the off-topic.debate NG. (...) ======== Posted via the LUGNET discussion group web interface ======== (URL) Search, Read, Post, (...) (26 years ago, 22-Oct-98, to lugnet.general, lugnet.market.auction, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:

		Re: Spam from Andreas Stabno
moz wrote in message ... (...) I'm moving this off-topic. So make sure you take the rest of the headers out if you reply. Proper English uses a masculine pronoun when there is an unknown person involved, or requires the longer "he or she." If the (...) (26 years ago, 20-Oct-98, to lugnet.general, lugnet.market.auction, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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