One is a nice standby. One's self, one's opinion, one ballerina... |
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Does anyone else wish that there was a single word for he/she, him/her, his/her, etc? When I write "he or she" in a sentence where gender is irrelevant, it seems like a distraction, like the reader will stop and think, "yes, I guess the person could be a male or a female." |
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I often run into this problem too. Sometimes "they" can work too, even if you're just talking about one person. "One" is really good though, as Mario said. |
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Lost count of how many lucid dreams I've had
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I sometimes use 'one' too. The only problem is you can only use the word once in a sentence, then you have to start using 'the person' or something similar. |
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I know what you mean. Writing "he or she" all the time can indeed detract from context. When writing something formal, it's no biggie. When writing something else... Flip a coin. Use whichever. Don't fall prey to using "they," as that's bad grammar. And you can use statistics. Most construction workers are indeed male; you shouldn't feel awkward when writing them male. Just make sure your statistics are accurate. Be gender-conscious, not gender-guilty. |
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Abraxas
Originally Posted by OldSparta
I just use 'their'. I don't care what the sticklers say, there is clearly a need for this word and hence it has come into popular use. If the sticklers had had their way throughout history we'd've never made it past grunting. |
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Luckily there is no he/she in the finnish language. Only one word referring to both genders. |
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Doesn't sound like that much of a problem. It seems to be that only applies when there are two other people, the context isn't obvious, and you can't be bothered to specify by other means... I mean, you might as well complain that there are no pronouns for blondes and brunettes to make it easier when you're talking to a blonde and a brunette. |
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One... ..heh.. ...could use the word "it" IF people didn't get so offended by it. I don't think that it is quite as disrespectful as people make it out to be. |
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I like to use "they/their" when I can. I don't like "one" cause it sounds too scholarly. I'll sometimes use "shim" to mock the stupid PC idiot standard "him/her" and as a last resort, I WILL use "he" instead of "he or she" and people who offend themselves over it can go fuck themselves. |
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My male philosophy professor always used 'she'. I'm guessing he's thought it out and has some reason for it. |
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I don't understand how 'one' can be used to mean 'he or she'? 'One' is a pronoun referring to an abstract, general person, not a fixed individual. |
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I know this one: s/he. |
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I've read books with a footnote that states something along the lines of 'I use "she" throughout the book but the information can be applied to either male or female.' |
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'One' wouldn't work in this case. It would work in cases like: |
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Last edited by Dianeva; 04-08-2011 at 01:33 AM.
I just say they if it becomes an issue, or "that person" or "a person" (sometimes the last 2 don't work haha) |
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From my rotting body,
flowers shall grow
and I am in them
and that is eternity.
-Edvard Munch
It is even worse in some languages. Here females are feminine, males are masculine and objects are neither and we just say it. In German objects could be any of the three and you have to memorize the gender for all objects. They also had three versions of the word the for each one. Some times there didn't seem to be any reason for why an object might be male or female, but that is how it was. |
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Yeah, that post was a bit of a derp. ._. |
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Dear People of the World, |
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mostest smartest and inteligintist persun n teh forumz
"In order to learn from past mistakes, one must look inside first." |
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Yeah, that's not the same as 'he or she', is it? |
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