(no subject)

[owlectomy]

I hadn't heard Geoff Pullum's ringing endorsement of singular "they" before. I'm a fan of singular "they," personally, but it's very convincing in how awful some of the alternatives sound:

A journalist can’t be so shy that he or she can’t bring himself or herself to go up to a stranger he or she sees and ask him or her to give him or her his or her opinion.’

Oh? 'He' is gender-neutral? Well--


‘Was it your father or your mother who hurt himself?’

Good enough for Jane Austen and W.H. Auden is good enough for me.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful. I have it book-marked. Though I must say, citing Austen as a source of correct English usage makes me a touch antsy, because she broke so many rules so often. Her punctuation in particular is, well, her own system. What *was* her editor thinking of?