Re. More she/he/it (pronounced "shee-it")

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

     A few folks have wondered why we estrogen-reduced,
     shortened-X-chromosome females, colloquially and unpopularly known as
     "males", would quibble over replacing "he" with "she" in text to
     correct a perceived historical imbalance. (Yes, you'd type this way
     too with tongue in cheek! A good oral surgeon can correct the
     problem.)

     At the risk of sounding logical, I'd have to note that this is as much
     an issue of familiarity as a matter of male dominance of the
     testosterone-impaired. I'd personally vote for calling us the
     "inhuman" race based on recent behavior in what used to be Yugoslavia,
     Chechnya, most of the Middle East, and on and on ad nauseum. And
     although this would probably be more logical, it _is_ two letters
     longer (strive for brevity!) and everyone would trip over it until we
     got used to it... and then what would we do about the millions of
     books already in print? I trip over "she" for the same reason:
     familiarity. My solution is to use neither he nor she unless I have
     to.

     The real problem with replacing "he" with "she" is that it also
     attempts to make one gender dominant over the other. To me, this is
     equally discriminatory, and Momma taught me that two wrongs don't make
     a right. The swap is also illogical given that it's generally easier
     to write your way around the problem and reserve the gender-specific
     for cases where the gender of the subject is truly important. And
     aren't we supposed to use words precisely?

     --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

     Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of
     our reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.