Why in the name of all that's holy is it sensible when it makes a significant portion of the readers want to throw up on their shoes?
I think it's questionable whether a "significant portion" of people object to the Each user has their own login name and password example. Some people do. We'd have to do some kind of poll to see if a "significant portion" of people do. I personally don't mind it and it comes out very naturally in casual, spoken speech. To me that's a sign of some sort of growing acceptance of it.
I think I've used this example before in PC-related dicussion. It used to be that I couldn't see the point in PC-ifying language. But when I joined the Board, Sparteye was a "journeyman". I didn't even realize that I thought she was a man until my first PM with her, and she turned out to be a woman, and I was surprised. I wondered why I'd thought this and then noticed her "ranking" of journeyman. Conclusion: gender-specific words do affect what we think of people, whether we are aware of it or not.
