On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 10:01 AM Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
What *is* the correct inclusive way to refer to an unidentified person in a technical document, without sacrificing clarity by using convoluted circumlocutions like "he/her/they" or over-use of the passive voice? My impression is that commonly accepted language rules and usage are lagging behind, and there's no good answer to this question yet :-(
Paul
Paul, this is actually a good question to ask. In general, singular "they" is becoming more popular. It's already used frequently for the singular indeterminate pronoun: "Someone wants to talk to you." "What do they want?" Those who favor prescriptivism will tell you this is improper usage (especially when it goes from an unknown someone to a known someone) but it avoids the strange construction of "he or she" and is more inclusive of diverse genders and is historically how the word was used. (For a fun counter example, the word "you" used to be a plural second person pronoun, but no one today would argue that it makes no sense to use it for an individual.) Piper Thunstrom My public key is available at https://keybase.io/pathunstrom Public key fingerprint: 8FF9 3F4E C447 55EC 4658 BDCC A57E A7A4 86D2 644F