At 12:09 AM 7/18/03 -0700, Delirium wrote:
Dante Alighieri wrote:
Why are people so unwilling to use
"they" to mean "he/she"?
Well, to some people it seems ungrammatical, since "they" hasn't been used
as a singular pronoun until very recently,
Your definition of "very recently" must include the early 19th century,
then: Jane
Austen used "they" as a singular pronoun. In fact, singular they is older than
"generic he".
so you end up with the "wrong" verb tenses.
So when you say something
like "They fall asleep as they watch TV," it sounds very much like you're
talking about multiple people.
And when you say "Ask your doctor what he thinks" it sounds entirely as
though you're talking about a man, whereas it's entirely likely that you're
talking
about a woman.
Neither is perfect.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr(a)redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org