Re: Gender neutrality and the multiple-personality third-person pronoun
>
I don't know what the answer is, but I definitely think the time for a
gender-neutral single personality pronoun has come. Normally I would
argue for using the indefinite pronoun "one" or "oneself" but for that
to make sense in the sentence you quote would demand a serious re-write.
I know it has serious de-humanizing connotations, but maybe we
professional writers and the academics who train future generations
should just start advocating the use of "it" "its" and "itself" when
referring to a single person whose gender is unknown. After all, we use
the same when referring to non-human mammals of unknown gender, so why
not use it for people of unknown (or unpredictable) gender as well?
Because nearly always, you can rewrite the sentence to
avoid gender specificity or objectifying people. In
this example, using the word "surrender" (as someone
else already noted) solves the difficulty.
-- Janice
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RE: Gender neutrality and the multiple-personality third-person pronoun: From: Nuckols, Kenneth M
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