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

[Tobias Toedter <t.toedter@gmx.net>]

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On Thursday 05 August 2004 04:48, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 04, 2004 at 09:02:05PM +0200, Tobias Toedter wrote:
> > First of all, thank you for this effort. However, English is not my
> > first language, that's why I wonder if it's common to use "they",
> > "them", and "their" when referring to a single person.
>
> It's a reasonably common workaround for the lack of a real
> non-gender-specific third-person singular pronoun in English, yes, and
> has been in use as such for centuries.
>
> There are occasional debates about its grammatical correctness, but I
> believe that it sounds natural to most native speakers.

Alright, thanks for clearing this up.

> > At least in German this would be highly unusual (to say the least; I'd
> > rather consider this a mistake).
>
> I'd expect translators to handle it in whatever way is appropriate in
> their language.

Sure. I guess we'll have to discuss this on -l10n-german, though.

Cheers,

- -- 

Tobias

    AMAZING BUT TRUE...
      If you took all the veins from your body and laid them together
      end to end, you'd die.
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