1. Phil I did not mean to accuse Phil of being one of those anything-goes descriptivists, who (in this case illogically) might want to invoke centuries-old practices to justify current practices, while at the same time insisting that language is continually evolving in such a way that it does no good to invoke past practices to justify (or to condemn) this or that current one, for the best we can do is to note and describe. It was not Phil I had in mind here, but Garner; indeed, I thank Phil again for showing me that what I'd thought was a recent skirmish in the Pronoun Wars, had a much older history. Phil's remarks have stimulated me to search various Internet sites in which old curmudgeons are gleefully exposed for being illogical about pronouns themselves. Eventually I was led to some remarks of Stephen Pinker's on the subject which I'd like to make the subject of another post, perhaps in collaboration with JLS. (Pinker thinks that 'anyone,' 'someone,' e.g., are not real pronouns.) 2. John Wager There may yet be a way out for students who now must choose between the requirements of Rhetoric 2, and of Social Psychology. (It would be too much, I suppose, to ask the various instructors involved to resolve this problem, now that they're aware of it, but I realize that this is Academia we're talking about.) When JL and I offer our refinement of Pinker's solution, there will be no need for such forced choices. 3. Judy writes: The problem with this is the context, that is, no-one who disagrees with you [about e.g., 'a person...they'] points with approval to a usage like "when a man gets home from work, she takes off her uniform" and says that legitimates errors now. The use of "they" is a different matter. Yes, it is a different matter, and no, I would hope that no one pointed to this odd construction with approval. My point was that it was mildly incoherent to argue both (1) that past usage really legitimates nothing and (2) that 13th or 14th century practices legitimate something. However, Judy's example ('when a man...'), is not an instances of using 'man,' or 'a man,' or 'he' as a default marker, as in e.g., 'When a person gets home from work, he takes off his uniform.' So, I'm not quite clear what it's an example of. 4. Mirembe. Mirembe says that she suspects that JL, aided and abetted by me, has (invented?) a new, neutral, human pronoun. I think JL is on the verge of it. (More of that later.) What may interest people further is that Mirembe and I have eloped. This may not be immediately apparent to anybody, for, as she is in the State Department, and I am in the Philosophy Department, we will continue to live several thousands of miles apart, and have no plans to meet before the year 2010. I apologize for injecting such personal note into the discussion, but sometimes one's enthusiasm overcomes they. Robert Paul The Reed Institute ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html