On Tuesday 03 August 2004 01:28 am, Patty Langasek wrote: > If pronoun usage in documentation is seriously an offensive and > train-halting offense to you, then by all means, feel free to devote > your time to finding other ways to have the documentation rewritten. > However, please keep in mind that some women aren't quite as ruffled > and are not offended by this.
Wow, who said that about train-halting offense :-). To me, it's not offensive but exclusive. Intentional or not, when I read (he this, he that, he, he, he, he...), I get the feeling I'm not included. But, when I read (NM, he/she, and alternating hes and shes), I get the feeling that I am included (yay). It's very subtle. Coincidentally, I didn't become consciously aware of this until I started reading open source docs. For the first time, there were many examples written with she as the pronoun, and I wasn't always having to mentally replace the male pronoun with something gender neutral. -Liz
