B. If consultants say that examples 5 and 6 sound "okay," ask them whether they
find any difference between examples 5-6 and examples 7-8 (e.g., differences in
use, differences in what the speaker may have in mind, contextual
appropriateness). Record your results.
- Anyone who thinks he can graduate in two years without working is either
a genius or out of touch. - Somebody in the house left the lights on, didn't he?
C. How does the following quotation from The First Twelve Months of Life (1985)
bear on the use of theylthem versus helhim? Why would the author include
such a comment in the introduction of his book?
A word about gender. Writers on child care may some day succeed in
introducing into the language a word that means both "he" and "she."
Meantime we will use the convention of the masculine pronoun, but we assure
you that unless we are talking about something where sex makes a difference,
everything we say about "him" refers to your new daughter as well.