> Know what I hate? People who don't realize that "he" is the neuter pronoun in the English language. I don't know why I suddenly thought of this. But it bugs me.

I realize this, but I still tend to use "he or she" to appease those people who don't realize this, and also because I only learned this a few months ago while browsing M-W, by which time I was already settled in the habit of using "he or she".

> In school, I wrote a paper for my sociology class, using "he" throughout, as that is gramatically correct. My professor actually told me I should change my wording to "he or she" in every instance. It is degrading to females, apparently, to use proper grammar.

Henry Hook, cryptic crossword creator extraordinaire, includes various rants in the introductions to his cryptic crossword books. Once he wrote a rant which went something like this:

"Why is there no word for 'he or she' in the English language? Whenever I say 'he/she' the person I'm talking to says 'Gesundheit!'"

(I'm paraphrasing -- I don't have any of his books, but I read that rant while browsing once.)

Incidentally, in the Spanish language, if there is a mixed group of males and females, the masculine plural is used to refer to the group. "Uncles" is "tios". "Aunts" is "tias". "Uncles and aunts" is "tios".

I don't really remember what the Spanish grammar conventions are if gender is unknown... It's been over a year since I've taken Spanish 1, and I haven't taken Spanish 2...

Lucky "Finally getting around to reading the forum after an absence of 15 days" Wizard