Is it ok to use the impersonal "he" in essays to avoid redundancy?

[hefracasado]

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I am writing a secondary for the prompt:

What do you consider to be the role of the physician in the community?

And I would like to avoid using "he/she" or "his/her" every time I am referring to the pronoun. What do you think @Goro @Lawper @LizzyM ?

 

[ace_inhibitor111]

It's better to use the formal form of the pronoun "Ustedes"

 

[Lawpy]

I like using the singular they. The advantage of this is it's gender neutral and saves characters.

So replace he/she with they, his/her with their etc.

 

[LizzyM]

They as a singular pronoun is catching on. http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-they-be-accepted-as-a-singular-pronoun-1428686651

"my fellow lexicographers and I pointed out that it already has done so for about seven centuries, appearing in the work of writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Jane Austen."

 

[Goro]

You can use nouns too: "A doctor should..." A good clinician can..."

I like this shorthand: s/he

I am writing a secondary for the prompt:

What do you consider to be the role of the physician in the community?

And I would like to avoid using "he/she" or "his/her" every time I am referring to the pronoun. What do you think @Goro @Lawper @LizzyM ?

 

[pithy84]

100% in favor of "they" as a singular. I have studied linguistics a fair amount.

I agree with LizzyM that "they" as a singular pronoun is popular, but it actually always has been. Shakespeare used "they" as a singular - one of the greatest English language writers of all time. The use of "they" as a singular actually fell out of fashion in the intervening time, and people decided it was a rule at some point that "they" is plural. Not starting and/or ending sentences with a preposition is also a "rule" that was just invented irrespective of actual common usage, even in very formal writing. Sometimes these "rules" get invented and then they later get viewed as more formal, when in fact the more common construction has always been common in all contexts.

It seems people feel a visceral need to make "formal writing" different than what is comfortable in speech. They need to have rules to obey that make it harder to write.

And then there are words that were never formal, like "dude", which is a cognate with "duds", which is an informal term for clothing. "Nice duds, dude. Sup with your job, bro?"

 

[pithy84]

Added bonus for "they": Maybe it IS the plural, given that prompt. What is the role for physicians, plural. How about that? In that case, they (physicians) heal sick people. Sounds good to me.

 

[Lawpy]

100% in favor of "they" as a singular. I have studied linguistics a fair amount.

I agree with LizzyM that "they" as a singular pronoun is popular, but it actually always has been. Shakespeare used "they" as a singular - one of the greatest English language writers of all time. The use of "they" as a singular actually fell out of fashion in the intervening time, and people decided it was a rule at some point that "they" is plural. Not starting and/or ending sentences with a preposition is also a "rule" that was just invented irrespective of actual common usage, even in very formal writing. Sometimes these "rules" get invented and then they later get viewed as more formal, when in fact the more common construction has always been common in all contexts.

It seems people feel a visceral need to make "formal writing" different than what is comfortable in speech. They need to have rules to obey that make it harder to write.

And then there are words that were never formal, like "dude", which is a cognate with "duds", which is an informal term for clothing. "Nice duds, dude. Sup with your job, bro?"

Added bonus for "they": Maybe it IS the plural, given that prompt. What is the role for physicians, plural. How about that? In that case, they (physicians) heal sick people. Sounds good to me.

Yeah pretty much. Perhaps the radical grammarians should actually study some history and linguistics before blindly dismissing the use of singular they. It has been used since the 14th century and there is nothing wrong with it.