Re: Gender neutrality and the multiple-personality third-person pronoun

[arroxaneullman -at- aol -dot- com]

Hi Chris,

You are comparing journalistic style with technical writing standards. 
There is a lot that those in journalism can get away with that we in 
tech comm cannot or should not. This is one area which is mightily 
contested, and, for once, I'm on the jouranlists side!

Most readers understand that using "they" means "we have no idea what 
this person's gender is so we'll just assume its not important to you." 


For my own writing, I use third person plural as the gender-neutral 
third person singular, but at work and for any technical writing I 
would avoid the phrase and use a different headline.

:)
Arroxane

-----Original Message-----
From: H. Christopher Christner <cchris -at- toptechwriter -dot- us>

 Hi all,

I was writing a blog entry about an unfortunate woman in Florida who 
got hit
by "celebratory gunfire" on New Year's Eve when I saw this text in the
original article (http://www.local6.com/news/5829143/detail.html):

"Police hope the person who fired the shot will turn themselves in to
authorities."

Do police think the shooter has multiple personalities?
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