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
