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- Xref: sparky alt.usage.english:8607 alt.sex:36548
- Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!agate!physics3!ted
- From: ted@physics3 (Emory F. Bunn)
- Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,alt.sex
- Subject: Re: A gender neutral pronoun
- Followup-To: alt.usage.english
- Date: 18 Nov 1992 06:57:53 GMT
- Organization: University of California, Berkeley
- Lines: 24
- Sender: ted@physics.berkeley.edu
- Message-ID: <1ecphhINN1vv@agate.berkeley.edu>
- References: <BxL0I3.1z4@unix.amherst.edu> <1992Nov18.100410.1@cc.newcastle.edu.au> <722057498@ptero.cs.duke.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: physics3.berkeley.edu
-
- In article <722057498@ptero.cs.duke.edu> dsb@duke.cs.duke.edu (D. Scott Bigham) writes:
- (Objecting to the use of "they" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun)
-
- >"Oh, someone will be coming by with the Harrison transcripts. Send them
- > to Joe in room 405."
- >
- >Now, does the 'them' in that sentence refer to the transcripts or to the
- >person bringing them?
- >
- >See the problem?
-
- Oh come now. Surely you're not suggesting that the fact that you can
- construct an ambiguous sentence with a particular word renders that word
- invalid. The ambiguity in that sentence has nothing to do with the fact
- that the word "them" has both singular and plural usages; I can perform
- the same trick with the word "it":
-
- "A truck will be arriving with my baobab tree. Send it to LeConte Hall."
-
- Does the "it" refer to the truck or the tree? I don't know. But I don't
- imagine we should stop using the word "it" for that reason.
-
- -Ted
-
-