On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 14:52, Paul Moore <p.f.mo...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 14:34, Henk-Jaap Wagenaar > <wagenaarhenkj...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > PEP-8 however does not mention a particular edition and the version that > is readily available (in the public domain) does contain this problematic > section "to use the masculine pronouns whenever possible" which is not > inclusive. > > (This is a genuine question, and I'm terrified of being yelled at for > asking it, which gives an idea of the way this thread has gone - but I > genuinely do want to know, to try to improve my own writing). > > What *is* the correct inclusive way to refer to an unidentified person > in a technical document, without sacrificing clarity by using > convoluted circumlocutions like "he/her/they" or over-use of the > passive voice? My impression is that commonly accepted language rules > and usage are lagging behind, and there's no good answer to this > question yet :-( > > Paul >
As others have said and more eloquently, I use and would suggest to use (singular) "they" or rephrase it. Furthermore, I have seen no rationale against "they" that I think holds any water (though of course, now one will surface!) and I have not seen it criticized recently. It seems incredibly common in circles I frequent that when an old document is reviewed every occurence of "he" is simply replaced with "they".
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