<p>seriously...don't you feel awkward using "he/she" all the time, or feel sexist using "he" all the time?</p>
<p>No ?</p>
<p>Isn’t that it’s or they? I really don’t see what’s wrong with he or she, though.</p>
<p>I know what you’re saying. It’s not awkward, it just kind of gets annoying. </p>
<p>Zapz: You shouldn’t refer to a human as an it and they is grammatically incorrect when talking about a singular person.</p>
<p>I think what the OP means if you are writing and need to refer to a person in some context, but don’t know if it’s (see, like right there someone shouldn’t refer to a human as an it) a boy or girl. </p>
<p>Or writing something like: “When a child first learns to read, he or she uses pictures.” Whereas a gender neutral language would be like: “When a child first learns to read, (gender neutral pronoun here) uses pictures.”</p>
<p>Formality regulates that you use a singular pronoun. It does not regulate you go “he/she”. Simply using “he” or “she” will be fine, you will get your point across and no one will be offended.</p>
<p>Oh, I kind of failed see what Siglio was talking about. Yeah, “they” wouldn’t work there. In that case, I’ve always disliked writing “he or she.” So my No? is changed to a Yes.</p>
<p>“hirs” is posessive</p>
<p>eh, just use one or the other, not both…</p>
<p>English is one of the most convoluted languages there is…it’s pretty sad that it’s spoken so widely.</p>
<p>LOL I agree with the OP…</p>
<p>I think it would be a step forward to have a gender-neutral pronoun–but it would be helpful if people would name their children with something that would tell us whether the person was male or female.</p>
<p>In formal papers, I always start out with “he or she” and then after that just “he.” Other times, I just use “one.”</p>
<p>In English, it is perfectly appropriate to use ‘he’ instead of ‘he or she’. And heck… in today’s world… it’s perfectly OK to say ‘she’ instead of he or she.</p>
<p>But you could always say it…</p>
<p>youre right. there should be a neutral pronoun.
we should speak the french way, using “on” instead of “he/she” when applicable.</p>
<p>That just makes things even more complicated because on also means we in french…</p>
<p>I think we should just invent a new language.</p>
<p>AUGirl:</p>
<p>We tried that. It’s called esparanto</p>
<p>
Yeah, we do that…</p>
<p>No, we can’t just invent a new language.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, if you’re trying to be grammatically, use one. If you’re not, just say they or them.</p>
<p>just say he.</p>
<p>all this feminist crap in the past few decades or so has totally messed up a perfectly acceptable way of referring to people. seriously feminist = anti men. i’m a girl by the way ^^</p>
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<p>If you think feminism is being anti-man, then you don’t know what feminism is.</p>
<p>I think the real problem is that the singular they has become unacceptable. It was perfectly fine to use for centuries and now there’s all this pedantry and all these pseudo-grammarians coming out and saying you can’t.</p>
<p>Usually, I manipulate my language so that “they” is grammatically correct or use “one.”</p>