Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
Not missing. Refuting. In English grammar, "technically correct" is just a synonym for "popular among grammarians". Nothing to do with whether it's proper English. . . .
It only remains for me to boldly state that these sort of simple-rule based criticisms of my language are something I'll no longer put up with. Any person who tells me I'm wrong can go [expletive deleted] themselves.
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P. Durrant: That was not a response to anything you've said. The irony is that I had just defended your point of view.
That was a response to QuantumIguana's insistence that the use of the genderless pronoun
he is a matter of the conflation of genders with once gender-specific professions and not a formidable obstacle in the structure of most modern languages.
You seem to have mistaken an expression of the idea that masculine genderless pronouns are built into languages (and are therefore quite difficult to remove) for the spectacle of you or someone else being beaten to death for improper usage.
No one wants to go on saying
he but meaning
he and she. The challenge is finding a way to do it without having to join the
Oulipo Society.