How to "genderless pronoun" yourself to survive 2019
I was taking a small reading pause by going into the else-proclaimed father and guru of opensource software Richard Stallman, famous for including non-binary or sexist lingo in his speeches, and found this gem:
https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
To quote:
Quote:
The proponents of "they" argue that it is the correct choice because people have long used it occasionally in the singular. While it is true that people did so, that shows only that they faced a similar choice between bad options. Some chose "they" as the least bad, but that doesn't make it a good solution.
He proposes a few good solutions that I haven't quite heard yet.
Have a good read and do tell, do you agree?
Re: How to "genderless pronoun" yourself to survive 2019
Oh, boy. (Tiny joke there.) I can only say that I tackle this thorny issue on a case-by-case basis. There is no perfect solution that pleases everyone—and maybe there never will be. In his Modern American Usage, Bryan Garner mentions a novel published in the 1980s in two versions—one using generic masculine pronouns and one using generic feminine pronouns. Reportedly the effects on readers were "startlingly different." Unfortunately I have never been able to identify the book he's referring to. Maybe someone can take on that challenge?
