use of he/she/they

Subject: use of he/she/they
From: "Misti Tucker USAET(UTC -04:00)" <mtucker2 -at- E-MAIL -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 16:05:29 EDT

Barclay Blanchard asks:
> It goes against the grain for me to use a plural pronoun that
> has a singular antecedent.

> I could rewrite so that there are no singular antecedents, but
> in some cases this may be clumsy.

I write so that singular pronouns aren't needed. It's occasionally a bit
clumsy, but not nearly as clumsy as a disagreement of number would be.

Misti Tucker
Technical Communication mta -at- cyberspace -dot- org (h)
& Help System Design mtucker2 -at- e-mail -dot- com (w)

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