Re: Debian Project Leader Election 2009: Final call for nominations.

[Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>]

MJ Ray wrote:
> That treads on the singular "they" landmine.  Also, it sounds like
> it's the Debian Developer's validity in question.
>
> How about "Debian Developers may nominate themselves by sending a
> signed email to debian-vote@lists.debian.org"?
>   

How about: "To be valid, a Debian Developer can send a signed email
nominating oneself to the debian-vote@lists.debian.org lists"?

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oneself>

Also see:

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:English_inflection#Forms_of_pronouns>

According to this page, themself is singular and themselves is plural.

The <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/themself> pages says "According to
many this is incorrect and its use should be avoided, however it is also
noted to have been in common use for hundreds of years. The issue stems
from they <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they> which is used as a
gender-neutral third-person pronoun, though this use is also considered
non standard. More information can be found at the usage notes
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/they#Usage_notes> on that page."

Personally I don't really care - it is up to the author to decide.

I just haven't seen anybody discredit "oneself" for the job yet ;-).

-- 
Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>