** Sometime around 13:40 -0500 12/12/98, Sue Paduano said:

>On Fri, 11 Dec 1998, Joe Clark wrote:
>>
>> By that logic, no writing other than personal correspondence would
>> ever be subject to change or evolution, because everything else you
>> read wasn't *meant* to insult you. Assuming the reader is male is a
>> dangerous practice. (Or female.) There are rather limited
>> exceptions-- pregnancy, prostate cancer, that sort of thing.
>>
>Let me jump in here.  I agree with Joe.  And I have a BA in psychology.

Let me jump in here. I agree with Dan. And I have an MS in electrical
engineering.

>One of the formost things that wastaught to us is to remove all personal
>pronouns, even in writing, unless you "know" the person and what gender
>they before writing them or addressing them.

One of the forEmost things that Strunk (of Strunk & White) tells us is
that it is not so much bad English as bad _style_ to use a plural pronoun
with a singular antecedent.

ref. <http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk/strunk3.html>

(Skip to the paragraph with the heading "They.")

Surely, Sue, you don't want to be perceived as having bad style, do you?
I mean, just think of the rumors that would circulate ...

>A lot of manuels in psychology, are written in the third person
>to avoid insulting anyone.

Being that English is his second language, one could hardly use Manuel as
a basis for English grammar and usage.

;-)

Now c'mon, kids ... when I first read Michael Johnson's post on this
subject, I kept waiting for the punch line. When I reached the end of
the post, and was still sans punch line, I realized for the first time
that he was *serious* about that question. Perhaps we can view this as
a tribute to LISTSERV that we apparently have no better nits to pick
beyond Eric's technically-correct grasp and use of the English language
in server messages -- but couldn't we just fake it and *pick* something
that might at least deceive a newcomer to this list into thinking that
we occasionally discuss serious issues?

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