Matthew Garrett wrote:
Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org> wrote:they is gender-neutral? Leads to very bad-sounding, at least for my ear, things like How have they contributed to Debian already? What do they intend to do for Debian in the future? How do they interact with others, such as users and other developersIt's fairly common usage in English, and it'll probably even be considered correct in a few years...
It made it into the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, apparently; though they took it back out for the 15th. What's considered correct changes pretty regularly.
Anyway, as long as you can work out what's being communicated, the only things that matter are whether the guidelines make it attractive for people to join and help out; and working to avoid both the "oh, only men are allowed in, huh?" reaction, and the "oh, so only people who can avoid clumsy sentences are allowed in? well, go stick your participles up your split infinitives" reaction both seem worthwhile.
Is there any reason why grammar, porn and spam debates are attracting so much traffic?
Cheers, aj