I came onto this list to learn about and to contribute to some aspects
of photography.
I did not expect to be lectured on the use of my own native language by
others who have developed particular personal prejudices about the use
of it.
It would perhaps be better if people across the pond whose hackles are
raised by a simple pronoun should cease to call their language *English*
(because that, in some measure, it certainly is not) and give it another
name.
Then they could sophisticate it and misuse it at will and enlist
*language police* to ensure that their parochial rules were adhered to.
That would leave us, in the mother country, in other places where
English is a first language, and in other parts of the world where they
still regard the language as ours, to let it evolve, as it has done for
hundreds of years, with style and with tolerance.
I, a mature and educated Briton, cannot, in some cases, understand the
message that is trying to be conveyed on these pages. Often the grammar
is at fault, the spelling atrocious, the syntax convoluted and I would
swear, some words have been invented, purely for effect.
Yet I would not presume to criticize. It may injure my sensibility but I
would not let it show, and I certainly wouldn't lose friends over it.
So my advice to Judy and others like her is : calm down, be offended by
all means but keep it to yourself. There are many better things in life
than looking for opportunities to censure the use of an ambiguous but
convenient *he* .
Now, please, can we all get back to photography?
-- Dennis