Re: manual style

[Ralph Little]

Hi,
Yeh, I object, but only 'cause I'm a bloke! ;)
More seriously, I've not seen many pronoun references, and I think that
it is generally better to avoid them altogether if at all possible with
direct command-like phrases.

I must admit to some surprise that there is such a standard that
determines feminine for gender non-specific pronouns, since it is
obviously not.
Everything that I've read uses either male or *very* occasionally a
mixture every other chapter.

The trouble is, determining a one-size-fits-all rule for this kind of
think can be too restrictive.
For example, when describing old professional music engravers, he/she
would be, almost without exception, male. Somebody correct me if I'm
wrong.
Referring to "her" would be inappropriate and silly.

I think that it is not a subject that bothers most people or maybe
that's a male perspective so I would vote for "male, but avoid pronouns
wherever possible".

Regards,
Ralph

>
========================================================================
==============
> - Current English academic[1] writing style is to use the feminine 
> pronoun as a gender-neutral pronoun.  "A composer might want to do
foo, 
> so she should write bar in her LilyPond score".  Yes, in the past[2] 
> English used the male pronoun for non-gender specific texts (ie
replace 
> "she" with "he" and "her" with "his" in the above example).  I've 
> changed such occurrences in the manual to reflect this[3].


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