Re: [boost] Gender neutral documentation

From: Benjamin Higgins (bhiggins_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-08 02:25:00

On 11/4/05, me22 <me22.ca_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> "They" is /not/ a singular pronoun, and to me it just makes it look as
> though the writer is ignorant.

There are some historical examples of singular they.

For the interested, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Also, in case there's any remaining who is curious, Wikipedia does a good
job of summing up gender-neutral pronouns at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun which includes mention
of the obscure Spivak pronouns, as well as sie and hir, xe, and ve -- though
I'm not suggesting any of them be used.

Ben