Bug#263084: Please change sexist language in debian (English) webpages

[Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com>]

On Wed, 04 Aug 2004, Tobias Toedter wrote:
>    "This is to prevent the Project Secretary from missing a proposal
>    in the huge volumes of mail generated on some of our lists and to
>    prevent them from having to subscribe to each and every list
>    created by the Project."
> 
> The Project Secretary is just one person, not a group. Is it still
> correct to use "them"? I'm sorry to bother you with this, it's just
> that I've never seen or heard such sentences.

That's definetly suboptimal in this case.

What I'd suggest is the following:

    "This is to prevent the Project Secretary from missing a proposal
    in the huge volumes of mail generated on some of our lists and to
    eliminate the need for the Project Secretary to subscribe to each
    and every Project list."

Where possible, eliminate pronouns and proper nouns, if not possible,
use they|them instead of he|him, if not possible, use the proper noun.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
 -- Tussman's Law

http://www.donarmstrong.com
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