Thread: Regarding choice of gender...

In case he didn't mention the gender on a previous sentence or there is not any other clue indicating a female person then he* should have used "he" if the writer wanted to abide by the grammar rules (I think that this is the rule in Russian. I am sure that this is the rule in Greek, German and Italian). Words representing a living person: anyone, someone, person, no one etc are always male.
I don't know whether "positive discrimination" is a new approach in grammar in the English Language.

*For example now I don't know the gender of the author. Grammar forces me to use he. I suppose a Suffragette would disagree ...

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

In case he didn't mention the gender on a previous sentence or there is not any other clue indicating a female person then he* should have used "he" if the writer wanted to abide by the grammar rules (I think that this is the rule in Russian. I am sure that this is the rule in Greek, German and Italian). Words representing a living person: anyone, someone, person, no one etc are always male.
I don't know whether "positive discrimination" is a new approach in grammar in the English Language.

*For example now I don't know the gender of the author. Grammar forces me to use he. I suppose a Suffragette would disagree ...

Well, using "she" is wrong even for "positive gender discrimination". If so, you should go for "he or she" or "they". The point is, I've seen a paper or two in business & social sciences (both ENG and GER) where this happens. It's not a rule. And language wise, it's wrong. (Unless there is some clue in the text ...)

Not sure about Greek, but German & English do have this thing when it comes to gender. Some institutes require publications be up to this rule. (the place I live in, it's supposed to be like this - I leave it up to you to decide whether or not it's OK). The majority of faculties/institutes, however, still do not care, though. I'm glad I did not have to bother about that when I wrote my stuff in finance. There isn't much of "he" or "she" to write when talking about interest rates or w/e.

I'm not a native Russian, but I cannot seen this type of discussion there. For I think it doesn't even exist. :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-...utral_pronouns