[knome]

I've never understood the animosity towards overloading `they` as a neuter singular pronoun. It doesn't seem to introduce any sort of ambiguity in the language and replaces a whole slurry of fumbling and hackish attempts with a single widely understood syllable. It's damned convenient.

Of course, I also hold a disdain for "proper quoting".

[losvedir]

> Of course, I also hold a disdain for "proper quoting".

What do you mean here? When talking about "proper quoting", I much prefer what I just did to what you're supposed to do (in American English) for "proper quoting."

I feel like when you quote things they become a unit together with the quotes, and the punctuation should then treat the whole composition as a single object. You wouldn't stick punctuation in the middle of the word at the end of a claus,e so why would you do that with quote?s

[javert]

The problem is, when a person uses 'they' as a single pronoun, he seems uneducated.

[socksy]

That's interesting, I don't think it makes one seem anymore uneducated than any other piece of correctly used grammar (correct use of the word "one", "none of them is" etc). I wouldn't regard my self as uneducated, having had the privelege to go to a good (if not public/private) school.

By any chance is this one of those quirks of American grammar usage that I've not come across before. The only times where I've seen disapproval of the use of 'they' in that fashion was on the Internet... By any chance is this another Ame

[pak]

"They is so smart!" --> the apparent subject-verb disagreement is just too unfamiliar to most ears.

[socksy]

You are still supposed to use plural declensions despite talking about a single person.

For instance: "if such a person existed, they were very quiet about their existence". Note that it's not "they was", which is grammatically incorrect.

[elblanco]

That's because it should read, "they are so smart".

[sprout]

Someone should make a hacker's manual of style.

[ynniv]

As opposed to "proper quoting?" I doubt most people understand the reference anymore.

[tsally]

Do you hold disdain for properly citing references in technical journals? The rational for proper quoting is the same.