At 03:38 PM 7/16/03 -0400, Erik wrote:
Based on standard english practice, I address someone
who's gender I do
not know, using masculine gender. I assume others do the same. There is
a page,
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen, which can be utiliZed if
you wish to be identified as female. It doesn't appear that most women
care though.
Standard English practice is to address people--whether I know their gender
or not--using the second person singular, which is ungendered.
What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people whose gender
you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard, and will
annoy
quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names, "they", and workarounds
like "that person", is probably a better idea.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr(a)redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org