Re: DM and pkg-perl (summary, take 1)
On Mon, 03 Dec 2007, gregor herrmann wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:12:50 +0000, Julian Mehnle wrote:
> > > > I do not oppose if you want to but it seems strange to me to use
> > > > she/herself instead of he/himself when talking in 'general'.
> > > I wanted to avoid "he/she" and "himself/herself" all over the place.
> > > Perhaps a different wording could be used too.
> > The gender neutral version would be "they/their/themselves" etc. (even in
> > the singular case).
>
> I was thinking about that, too.
>
> Further down in policy.pod there are some "he" phrases; I'd suggest
> to change them all to "they/their/themselves". [0] Maybe a native
> speaker (Jeremiah?) could check the whole text after it's clear
> _what_ we want to change.
The best thing to do is to avoid using pronouns. While the plural
gender indeterminate pronouns are better than singular gender
determinate, they are still awkward when used as a replacement for a
singular noun. [Plus, using the actual noun instead of a pronoun
avoids pronoun ambiguity, making the meaning more clear.]
In any event, if you need to run it by a native speaker, just let me
(or someone else around) know.
Don Armstrong
--
I'd never hurt another living thing.
But if I did...
It would be you.
-- Chris Bishop http://www.chrisbishop.com/her/archives/her69.html
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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