[net.motss] pronouns

huhn@wivax.UUCP (01/20/84)

I can contain myself no longer.  I read someones suggestion to stop
refering to one who is gay as "he".  Being female I support this
suggestion.  Nothing makes me quit reading something faster than
the repeated assumption that the unknown third person is always
male.  BUT... It is an awful choice to use the plural.  That is
even worse.

The proper third person generic pronoun is one.  The reason our
language sounds sexist is because for some odd reason, we dropped
some (useful) pronouns from general usage.  For instance, when
was the last time you, or anyone you know used the second person
familar (thee) rather than the second person formal (you).  My
guess it was about 350 years ago as a reaction to
the friends.  But that's only
a guess.  In any case, the way to correct the situation is to
return to correct usage....one....., NOT to compound the error.

I've spent several weeks using one wherever I had previously used
he or (the clumsy) he/she.  Surprisingly, it isn't too bad.  The
only situation that jars the ear is refering back to a noun within
the same sentence. (e.g. The user turns on the terminal, then one .....)
Other than that, one would be surprised how many times one can work
the third person generic pronoun one into one sentence.

wdoherty@bbncca.ARPA (Will Doherty) (01/22/84)

The problem with the pronoun "one" is that when you say something
like, "One must be careful not to lose one's head," it sounds silly.
I prefer, "People must be careful not to lose their heads."

Another conversation which should be on another newsgroup...

			Will Doherty
			decvax!bbncca!wdoherty

rob@denelcor.UUCP (01/24/84)

I propose that the pronoun "it" replace "he" when the sex of a person is
either not known or is indefinite (androgeny doesn't count).  After all,
"they" seems to work quite nicely for both people and objects.

In a gay context, not only does this avoid offending women ("she" in reference
to a man is used in a derogatory sense), but we seem to have a hard time as it
is distinguishing people from objects.  :-)

Robert Wahl
hao!denelcor!rob