| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
|
5. Gender: Sexist Language and Assumptions
|
| § 15. compound and coordinate forms |
| Forms such as he/she, she/he, he or she, her or him, and so on, offer another solution to this problem. The Usage Panel looks favorably on many of these alternatives, especially in formal writing. For the sentence A patient who doesn’t accurately report _____ sexual history to the physician runs a risk of misdiagnosis, 51 percent of the panel would use his or her, and another 8 percent would use his/her or her/his. These forms are grammatically unexceptionable, but they can be cumbersome in situations requiring their repeated use. | 1 |
|
|
|
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
