Hello Derek,
On Wed, 13 May 2009 01:04:19 +0000 (UTC), BCS wrote:
Ah! One of my favorite qwerks of the English language, how to refer
to a specific single someone of unknown gender without insulting
them: "it"?
I hate it but what can I do?
Use "they". Sure, its wrong but everyone knows what you mean. As in
... "A good coder will write useful comments because *they* care."
Yeah, much as I dislike it, you end up having to. And as someone else pointed
out, "they" is actually correct (why, I don't know). Also, in your case,
it's the generic "they" and in one way of thinking, it *is* plural (as in
there are many people that it can refer to) so it kind of sounds reasonable.
