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I'm a grad student and a full time writer, and last week one of my
professor's got on her soap box about this very subject, but she was against
it. Your teacher reminds me of my 10th grade English teacher, who also
taught the journalism class. He taught us a bunch of "new" grammatical rules
(A.P. style conventions) that caused me trouble for years.
I think that if we open the door on allowing common misuse to dictate how we
write, the language loses value every step of the way. If you don't see how
loosing the pronouns "he" and "she" would weaken the language, read Ayn
Rand's Anthem.
BTW, does anybody know the quote, "The problem with common [?] is that it's
just so common."? I tried to find it, but I didn't have any luck.
-----Original Message-----
From: jhamilton%XN_TECHNOLOGIES -at- xn-tech -dot- com
[mailto:jhamilton%XN_TECHNOLOGIES -at- xn-tech -dot- com]
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 11:54 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: pronouns and portfolios
I'm a student (and a tech writer intern), and we had a discussion about
this in a grammar class where the teacher said using "they" as a pronoun
for an unidentified someone may eventually become common usage.
Personally, I think it's a great way to overcome the "s/he" conundrum,
although I avoid it in my papers. What do you think?
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