I am finishing a book for a major publisher. They have four people on the editing team: grammar, punctuation, style, etc.
In my manuscript, I used an example store, along with "Laura", an example customer. I consistently used the singular for her.
But the editors changed that to "they" and "their". Sex-neutral plural.I let them make the decision on this item, but I talked about it with several friends. It creates awkward sentences and removes the specificity of the examples.
But whatever. Yes, apparently, it's the standard now. yrs, andreas www.andreas.com----- Original Message ----- From: "David Ritchie" <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 9:20 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Revisiting Judy's World
It has been a while since we discussed changes in how personal pronouns are used. When last we visited this issue Judy wrote--and here I'm relying on unreliable memory--that using "they" as a replacement for "he/she" had become acceptable in her world. I wrote that I thought this was an ugly solution and that in this part of the world we still mark this usage as an error.Here acceptable solutions to the problem are: * A German must always think about what he is doing. * A German must always think about what she is doing. *A German must always think about what he or she is doing. *Germans must always think about what s/he is doing. *Germans must always think about what they are doing. The error I'm putting before you is: *A German must always think about what they are doing.Why revisit the issue now? Partly because we haven't heard much from Judy recently but also because I wonder whether our language's progress has followed Judy's world's pioneer road. Here is an ad for a paid Ph.D. slot at the University of London:We anticipate that the student will contribute to contextual genealogical research on the main project and draw from this material to underpin their own research topic. The student will be given extensive guidance on research methods, on the use of the appropriate archives in England, France and Belgium and training in the software used in the main project. They will be part of a team while at the same time developing their own research.What say you, an error or evidence that language has changed? David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
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