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Subject:Re: use of he/she/they From:Sella Rush <SellaR -at- APPTECHSYS -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 12 Aug 1997 13:52:18 -0700
Re english standards, in actual fact...
Today's standards are certainly tighter than in Shakespeare's time, but
the tightening was really done in the 17th through early 20th century.
And, as I mentioned before, many of the rules those wacky *guys* came up
with back then had little to do with our concerns like readability and a
lot to do with standardization and measurability (and a few other
motives too inflammatory to get into here).
What we're seeing now is a lot of questioning of those rules.
(I've been meaning to compose a longish post to this list on some recent
reading I did on the subject of language standardization, but haven't
gotten around to it yet. Soon, though. It's made me rethink some of my
adherence to arbitrary rules. The scary part, though, is being judged
incompetent rather than simply unconventional (deviant?)--gee, sounds
like life.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sella Rush mailto:sellar -at- apptechsys -dot- com
Applied Technical Systems, Inc. (ATS)
Bremerton, Washington USA
Developers of the CCM Database
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