docdwarf@clark.net wrote:
|In article <887259454.521453@optional.cts.com>, Will Rose <cwr@cts.com> wrote:
|[snippismus]
|>
|>No.  The word 'they' is used here to mean 'he or she, gender neutral'.
|>It's an obsolescent form of the language, probably no longer taught,
|>but still relatively widely used among the well-educated in England.
|>The sentence, in British English at least, is well-formed.

|I am unfamiliar with the precedent you cite; would you be so kind as to
|post an example?

You could find it from your desk... Use the Websters dictionary at 
www.m-w.com to find...

Main Entry: they
Pronunciation: '[th_]A
Function: pronoun, plural in construction
Etymology: Middle English, from Old Norse their, masculine plural
demonstrative & personal pronoun; akin to Old English th�t that
Date: 13th century
<snip>
2 : PEOPLE 2 -- used in a generic sense <as lazy as they come>
usage They used as an indefinite subject (sense 2) is sometimes objected to
on the grounds that it does not have an antecedent. Not every pronoun
requires an antecedent, however. The indefinite they is used in all
varieties of contexts and is standard.

usage They, their, them, themselves: English lacks a common-gender third
person singular pronoun that can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns (as
everyone, anyone, someone). Writers and speakers have supplied this lack by
using the plural pronouns <and every one to rest themselves betake --
Shakespeare> <I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly --
Jane Austen> <it is too hideous for anyone in their senses to buy -- W. H.
Auden>. The plural pronouns have also been put to use as pronouns of
indefinite number to refer to singular nouns that stand for many persons
<'tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them
partial, should o'erhear the speech -- Shakespeare> <a person can't help
their birth -- W. M. Thackeray> <no man goes to battle to be killed. -- But
they do get killed -- G. B. Shaw>. The use of they, their, them, and
themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well
established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts.
This gives you the option of using the plural pronouns where you think they
sound best, and of using the singular pronouns (as he, she, he or she, and
their inflected forms) where you think they sound best.

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            The above are my own views, not the views of HP
  Tom Gardner               Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Filton Rd, 
  tgg@hpl.hp.com	    Stoke Gifford, Bristol, Avon, BS12 6QZ, ENGLAND.
  Fax: +44 117 9228924      Tel: +44 117 9799910 ext. 28192
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