Gunn ,'Unleashed'
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
Wait--surely if you've established woman you've established her?
No, I meant that both "woman" and "her" (I'm linking them for the purposes of this example) aren't always going to apply when talking about pregnancy.
I'm with you on the assumption that once you've established woman, then the pronoun would be "her."
I meant that both "woman" and "her" (I'm linking them for the purposes of this example) aren't always going to apply when talking about pregnancy.
Oh, okay. Because Burrell's example was "woman" and "their", which I agree is hella clumsy.
I don't see why academic writing never has occasion to refer to unknown genders, and I'm never going to err on the side of assigning gender for no reason, but if you do know and have already specified, why the hell not just keep saying so?
Oh, okay. Because Burrell's example was "woman" and "their", which I agree is hella clumsy.
Yeah, I moved on from pronouns to navigating how to talk about a pregnant person who might not identify as a woman. Certainly not run-of-the-mill stuff.
Congrats, Seska!! How exciting. You guys are beautiful!!
In other news, I totally got to hold, snuggle, and play with a freaking 6 month old capuchin monkey this morning. A freaking monkey. He was awesome. His name was Seymour and he totally snuggled my neck, inside my fleece, and NIBBLED MY FACE. It was brilliant.
For what it is worth, a lot of publishers have the standard of alternating between "he/him/his" and "she/her/hers" as gender neutral pronouns. That is the first time you make a gender neutral reference it is author's choice. But next reference you have to make the opposite choice you made last time. So if you start out with "she" as a generic reference to human beings of both genders, next generic reference has to use "he" (Or "him" or "his" depending.
you can no longer make the assumption that (to use Burrell's example from way above), "The pregnant woman should talk to her doctor," is correct
Heh. Glad I am not the only one thinking of the many pregnant men of my acquaintance.
A fair number of sociologists use 'she/her' most or all of the time, when it's obvious that the reference is generic ("If the student hands in her paper on time, her grade will reflect this.")
For the medical paperwork and studies I've helped edit (and participated in), the preferred option seems to be, for anything that could conceivably be written as a set of instructions, to do so and address the reader as "You" (entire grant proposals have had to be resubmitted because the patient bill of rights and informed consent forms were written in the third person instead of the second). Obviously it won't work for a lot of academic writing, but for mundane-world uses it's often pretty handy.
fair number of sociologists use 'she/her' most or all of the time, when it's obvious that the reference is generic ("If the student hands in her paper on time, her grade will reflect this.")
My preference. But my publisher told me to alternate.
They! Their paper! Their grade! It's perfectly cromulent! I swear! I read it on the internet. No choosing, no alternating, no revelation of biases or stereotyping. Just good old not specifying.