Re: His/Her v. Their

["Monique Semp" <monique -dot- semp -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

Hello, WR-L-ers,

I've been following this all day on my iPad because I spent much of my time 
waiting in waiting rooms today, but now I'm back at my desk with a real 
keyboard and can easily send my thoughts.

A while ago I learned that there *is* an argument to be made that "their" is 
perfectly acceptable as a singular gender-unspecific pronoun. So I just 
googled it, and although this isn't the link that I remember, it will do for 
now: http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html.

I doubt this will persuade any of the writers who so passionately discussed 
this today, but it seems on topic and some might find it interesting.

But although I'd really like to use "their" in this fashion, I do generally 
avoid it because the vast (vast) majority of people will think it incorrect, 
which isn't a good thing in docs -- kind of like when an editor told me very 
early on in my career that I really should avoid using "comprise" because 
although I'd used it correctly, most people would think I hadn't. I was 
disappointed and rebelled for a while, but came to accept the wisdom of her 
words.

I do occasionally use the "s/he" construction instead of "he/she" or "he or 
she", but again I do that only sparingly because it is certainly a 
non-standard construction. But I like it so in one-off sorts of papers or 
reports (vs. ongoing maintained manuals, for example) where the writing 
style can be a bit more free ("free-er"?), I use it.

-Monique

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