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"He" is not gender neutral. More | Login | Reply

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AN indefinite pronoun (Score:1)

by suzo (7035) on 2006.06.23 19:47 (#48389)

There is an indefinite pronoun that has fallen out of usage, name "one", unfortunetly it is usually misunderstood as meaning "I", but in fact means an indefinite person. The problem is that it doesn't refer back to someone identified earlier, though it is gender neutral.

I have sometimes seen in older texts the term "that one" to refer to an identified person in a gender neutral way. Sounds a bit clumsy today though
This may not please your manager, as that one may also believe that what you want is the lowest price
And it still doesn't work for a posessive pronoun (his/her) so that still leaves the plural "their" as the only option that I can think of.

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