[Python-Dev] Vagaries of "their" in English (was Re: Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Sat Mar 5 07:00:13 CET 2011


On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 10:40 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> That's how I felt 20 years ago. But since then I've come to appreciate
> they as a much better alternative to either "he or she" or "he". Just
> get used to it.

If anyone wants to further explore this question, the Stack Exchange
on English usage is a decent place to start:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/192/is-it-correct-to-use-their-instead-of-his-or-her

What it boils down to is that "their" is the least bad of all of the
available options.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia


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