On 26/08/15 13:31, Greg Stark wrote:
> On 25 Aug 2015 23:31, "Alvaro Herrera" <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>> This is what I suggested:
>>
>> "Possibly, your site administrators have already created a database for
>> your use. They should have told you what the name of your database is.
>> In that case you can omit this step and skip ahead to the next
>> section."
> For what it's worth there is a long history of using "plural" pronouns
> "they", " them", "their" for singular persons. It's becoming
> increasingly standard but it's always been around. It wouldn't be
> incorrect to adopt that style though it might invite misguided pedants
> and debates on that point.
>
> c.f. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27
>
>
I would strongly agree!
Better than "she or he", or using "she' to mean both (on the basis "she"
includes "he" - you could equally justify using "he" to mean both, as it
is the greatest common subset, yet people say it is sexist!).
Besides what about those people who:
(1) have ambiguous gender
(2) have both type of genitalia (at least part, neither necessarily
fully functional)
(3) have no genitalia
(4) or don't want to declare themselves
(5) are in the process of changing from one to the other
(there is an island where roughly 10% of boys are born looking like
females, and at puberty they change. Their parents simply change
they name and give them different clothes, and treat it as no big
deal! - reading an article about this, got me interested, was
fascinating)
Probably more importantly, why bring gender into a phrase if it is
irrelevant! I have been using what I call 'Gender Appropriate" language
long before all this "Political Correctness" nonsense started up.
Besides which, you often want to refer to one or more people when
discussing something, so using "they", " them", & "their" much more
widely makes a lot of sense.
Cheers,
Gavin