discuss: [jfleck@inkstain.net: GNOME Documentation Style Guide]
Subject:
Re: [jfleck@inkstain.net: GNOME Documentation Style Guide]
From:
David Lawyer ####@####.####
Date:
7 Jul 2001 04:15:29 -0000
Message-Id: <20010706211418.A201@lafn.org>
On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 08:49:16AM -0400, Alicia Rojas wrote:
> As a female, as long as it is noted in the beginning of the document
> that "he/his" refers to everyone, I consider it acceptable. Just
> mention it once, and your in the clear with most of us :)
I think that it doesn't even need to be mentioned. There are two weak
arguments for using he/his. One is that "he" is shorter than "she".
The second is that many more users of Linux are men than women. This
may change in the future. So since these two arguments are weak, if
someone uses all she/her, that should be OK too. Or you can use both
he/him and she/her in the same document as Tanenbaum does in his books
on computers. I just did a grep on my HOWTOs and found that I used
"s/he" a few times, while I used "he" only when I was referring to
certain male authors. Mostly I used "they" and "you".
David Lawyer
