He Said/She Said
I had a grammar question for a letter I was writing the other day and came across this cool grammar site. I can use the phrase "cool grammar site" without feeling too stupid, because I'm just that cool.
This article about gender-neutral pronouns intrigued me - mostly because there wasn't an answer.
While I was writing my book, I had this problem. For instance, I wrote something like "When investing, a person should choose a mutual fund he deems appropriate for his risk tolerance." The Divine Mrs. M said suggested I should alternate some she's or use "his/her"and "he/she or something like that so as to not offend any female readers.
I didn't like that idea. It was too clunky. Too unpoetic. It got in the way of what I was writing. It drew too much attention to itself. Plus, I wanted to stick with a grammatical chestnut I had read once: "In grammar, as in love, the male embraces the female." So I was going to use he/him/his all the way through the book.
I could tell by Mrs. M's face that that wasn't going to sit well. So I had to think...
The solution to this was a character called The Pure Investor; and, thus, the name of the book. I introduced him in the first chapter which you can read here. He was a actual character, he was male, I could us he/him/his through the whole book without insulting anyone and maintaining domestic tranquility. There was the added benefit that it made the book better. It is different from other investment books which are uber-BORING. I can't stand them. Mine, I think, is much more readable.
So I have political correctness to thank for forcing me to be creative and writing a better book.
But after reading that above article, I got to thinking. I have 8 years of study of Spanish under my correa and the whole language is strewn with gender/masculine-feminine words. How do they solve this issue? Is it a problem for them or are they just more sensible about it and say "get over yourselfs"?
Any romance language speakers out there that can help?
Stay You.
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This article about gender-neutral pronouns intrigued me - mostly because there wasn't an answer.
While I was writing my book, I had this problem. For instance, I wrote something like "When investing, a person should choose a mutual fund he deems appropriate for his risk tolerance." The Divine Mrs. M said suggested I should alternate some she's or use "his/her"and "he/she or something like that so as to not offend any female readers.
I didn't like that idea. It was too clunky. Too unpoetic. It got in the way of what I was writing. It drew too much attention to itself. Plus, I wanted to stick with a grammatical chestnut I had read once: "In grammar, as in love, the male embraces the female." So I was going to use he/him/his all the way through the book.
I could tell by Mrs. M's face that that wasn't going to sit well. So I had to think...
The solution to this was a character called The Pure Investor; and, thus, the name of the book. I introduced him in the first chapter which you can read here. He was a actual character, he was male, I could us he/him/his through the whole book without insulting anyone and maintaining domestic tranquility. There was the added benefit that it made the book better. It is different from other investment books which are uber-BORING. I can't stand them. Mine, I think, is much more readable.
So I have political correctness to thank for forcing me to be creative and writing a better book.
But after reading that above article, I got to thinking. I have 8 years of study of Spanish under my correa and the whole language is strewn with gender/masculine-feminine words. How do they solve this issue? Is it a problem for them or are they just more sensible about it and say "get over yourselfs"?
Any romance language speakers out there that can help?
Stay You.
Back to Main Page
posted by Howard McEwen, CFA at Tuesday, March 15, 2005
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