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Subject:Re[2]: Gender Reference From:doug montalbano <doug_montalbano -at- CC -dot- CHIRON -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 25 May 1994 15:20:58 PST
Must we go through this AGAIN?? Let's NOT confuse the reference to a
person's gender with English grammatical gender, okay?
Otherwise, I agree with the statements below.
Doug
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Doug Montalbano <> Technical Writer <> Chiron Corporation
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Doug_Montalbano -at- cc -dot- chiron -dot- com <> (510) 601-2862 (voice/TDD)
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...an editor ... comes down from the mountain after a battle
and shoots the wounded.... --Rita Mae Brown, _Bingo_
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Speaking only about the challanges I face in documenting the
software my company produces, there is nothing about the
functionality of our software that relies on the user's
gender. Also, we do not feel that references to gender
enhance the quality of our manuals. I've seen it expressed
(in one way or another) many times on this list that one of
our goals as technical writers should be to create
documentation that meets stiff requirements for accuracy and
crispness. In our case, this rules out any reference to
gender in our manuals.