Wordsmith Talk |
About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | |||
Register Log In Wordsmith.org Forums General Topics Q&A about words Name your sex!
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
The CBC url that Bean posted raised a thought about epicene pronouns. [never-thought-i'd-use-the-word-of-the-day-that-fast-in-a-post-I-was-going-to-make-anyway emoticon]
To quote Christopher Robin (or at least A.A. Milne) "If the English language had been properly organized . . . then there would be a word which meant both 'he' and 'she', and I could write, 'If John or Mary comes heesh will want to play tennis,' which would save a lot of trouble."
It is often possible to reconstruct a sentence to use general plurals or avoid pronouns, but I am interested in the board's opinion for the occasions when gender neutral pronouns are necessary. Do you prefer "he or she" "he/she" "his/hers" or do you (like me) [putting his cards on the table e] prefer using "their" "they" as gender neutral singular pronouns?
Rod
Moderated by Jackie
Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Statistics Forums16Topics13,913Posts229,368Members9,182 Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
Newest Members Ineffable, ddrinnan, TRIALNERRA, befuddledmind, KILL_YOUR_SUV
9,182 Registered Users
Who's Online Now 0 members (), 715 guests, and 0 robots. Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters(30 Days) A C Bowden 21
Top Posters wwh 13,858Faldage 13,803Jackie 11,613wofahulicodoc 10,561tsuwm 10,542LukeJavan8 9,919Buffalo Shrdlu 7,210AnnaStrophic 6,511Wordwind 6,296of troy 5,400
Forum Rules · Mark All Read Contact Us · Forum Help · Wordsmith.org