On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 14:34, Henk-Jaap Wagenaar
<wagenaarhenkjaap@gmail.com> wrote:
> PEP-8 however does not mention a particular edition and the version that is readily available (in the public domain) does contain this problematic section "to use the masculine pronouns whenever possible" which is not inclusive.
(This is a genuine question, and I'm terrified of being yelled at for
asking it, which gives an idea of the way this thread has gone - but I
genuinely do want to know, to try to improve my own writing).
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
As others have said and more eloquently, I use and would suggest to use (singular) "they" or rephrase it. Furthermore, I have seen no rationale against "they" that I think holds any water (though of course, now one will surface!) and I have not seen it criticized recently. It seems incredibly common in circles I frequent that when an old document is reviewed every occurence of "he" is simply replaced with "they".