my latest windmill to tilt at

[rone]

English already has perfectly useful gender-neutral pronouns: it, its. Use them. Do not use they, them for singular objects. Do not use the abhorrent, artificial 'hir', 'zie', 'blim', 'gur', or whatever. Yes, people can be called 'it'. Deal with it.

Comments

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

Or you could rewrite it.

The burglar disabled the alarm system, and then broke the window, sustaining a slight injury from the borken glass. The suspect then entered the house, went to the den, and took the teevee and TiVo.

Also, remember (this comes in handy in these situations), there ain't nothing wrong with the passive voice none, either.

Or somethin'.

Ah, the once legendary cry of the IBM information developer

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

RWRTATP: Real Writers Rewrite To Avoid The Problem.

Boy, do I miss the old Uithoorn Nitpick Mob.

Re: Ah, the once legendary cry of the IBM information developer

[jwgh]

I think it's not necessarily that realistic to expect people to do this sort of rewriting on the fly during speech, though (although it certainly becomes easier and more natural with practice).

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

DANGLING PARTICIPLE! *PLONK*