Raphael Hertzog <hert...@debian.org> writes: > On Mon, 25 Jun 2012, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> The 15th Edition was published in 2003. Since then, my personal >> impression is that opposition to generic "he" has hardened considerably >> and opposition to singular "they" has weakened somewhat. Using "he" as >> a generic pronoun for a person of indeterminate gender is now generally >> considered inappropriate in manuals and documentation in the free >> software communities I've followed and the discussions I've seen, >> although there is the occasional hold-out. >> I see there's now a 16th Edition out, but I don't personally have a >> copy. I'm curious whether it has changed its stance on singular "they" >> back to the stance in the 14th Edition. > Just for reference, apparently they haven't changed their stance: > http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Pronouns/Pronouns17.html Ah, indeed. Thank you. Oh, hey, Stanford has an institutional subscription to the online Chicago Manual of Style. That's a good thing to know. Here's the relevant statement, which indeed has been updated to reflect the fact that "he" as a generic pronoun has dropped even further out of style: 5.46 The singular “they” A singular antecedent requires a singular referent pronoun. Because he is no longer accepted as a generic pronoun referring to a person of either sex, it has become common in speech and in informal writing to substitute the third-person plural pronouns they, them, their, and themselves, and the nonstandard singular themself. While this usage is accepted in casual contexts, it is still considered ungrammatical in formal writing. Avoiding the plural form by alternating masculine and feminine pronouns is awkward and only emphasizes the inherent problem of not having a generic third-person pronoun. Employing an artificial form such as s/he is distracting at best, and most readers find it ridiculous. There are several better ways to avoid the problem. For example, use the traditional, formal he or she, him or her, his or her, himself or herself. Stylistically, this device is usually awkward or even stilted, but if used sparingly it can be functional. The statement about "he" in the second sentence is now quite firm. Personally, I'm quite happy to declare the Developer's Reference to be informal writing and use that approach. Recasting sentences to avoid having to use singular pronouns is a huge amount of work if one wants to avoid awkward and distracting phrasings, and most native speakers won't even notice use of "they" in my experience. (Although I would avoid "themself," which does indeed look like a mistake to my eyes.) -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
