Re: About the use of epicene "they" in technical documents.
Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Aug 2008, Adeodato Simó wrote:
>
>>>> Whoa, is that a feeling or an accusation?
>>
>>> I see "feeling" clearly there on the second line. Why suggest Andreas
>>> Tille is dishonest like that?
>>
>> Slapping prefixes around does not magically exempt you from taking
>> responsibility for your words (and with this I don't mean Andreas wanted
>> to do that, I'm merely replying to your comment).
>
> Just to make one thing clear: It was no accusation against people who
> I know to be honest. I'll not spend my time in the topic any more.
> Tried that in my mother language more than 10 years ago and found out
> that it was actually a waste of time. Do not want to repeat this in
> a language I might tip on other people toes. (I rather use the time
> I saved here to help my wife doing some housework.)
I think English is different from other languages.
In most other European languages, the gender of words
(and the grammatical gender) has not relation to the gender
of the "real" subject.
I.e. on Latin derived language, "person" is feminine, so
you can refer with male with feminine adjective, when using
"person" as subject. I think no male is scared about this.
IIRC also German is the same.
Note: this is an explanation because a lot of us
don't realize the problem of gender.
ciao
cate
>
> Kind regards
>
> Andreas.
>
Reply to: