gotos

[SIEMON]

In article <11352 at ut-sally.UUCP+, nather at ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
+ In article <993 at micomvax.UUCP>, ray at micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn) writes:
+ 
+ [... much very sensible discussion deleted ...]
+ 
+ > a "soap-box" forum.  A poster *must* realize that (s)he is exposing himself
+                                                     ^^^^^             ^^^^^^^
+ Twisting the language to become gender-free is not so easily done, as this
+ example demonstrates.  You have to change *all* references to a variable,
+ not just some of them, if the code is to work.

Yes; as a good rule of thumb, it is MUCH easier to recast your sentences into
plural forms (where English makes no gender distinctions) than to go into
contortions to "fix" a sentence you have already warped by using the singular.
The pluralizing tactic will almost always work (outside of specific references
to individuals, where acknowledging gender is usually innocuous.)

This is a nice analogue of the problems with "go to" in programming languages;
the occurence of the deprecated form is a good sign (with some rare exceptions,
as has been mentioned in this discussion) that you have probably not thought
out the problem first.

-- 
Michael L. Siemon
contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories
ihnp4!mhuxu!mls
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