Dear Eleanor,
In the English I (and Gerard) learned at school, 'he' was (also) the
generic way to refer to an unknown person. In the English of the future,
the use of 'he' may well be discouraged altogether. Meanwhile the top
generic pronoun is currently 'they'.
So, who knows how you are supposed to interpret that word in a BB
message in 2020??
;-)
Rasmus Fogh
On 11/03/2020 16:53, Eleanor Dodson wrote:
> Am I missing something? He? She? It? Are they now interchangeable?
>
> On Wed, 11 Mar 2020 at 16:15, Tim Gruene <[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Dear Gerard,
>
> you are wrong. 'he' in this context has as much information as
> 'someone' and
> 'person'. It does not refer to the sex of the person spoken about.
>
> Best regards,
> Tim
>
> On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 4:44:47 PM CET Gerard DVD Kleywegt wrote:
> > >>> Sorry to have taken this matter up in such a visible
> manner: I
> > >>> noticed
> > >>>
> > >>> this very wrong formula in someone's paper, and that person
> then told me
> > >>> where he had found it. Having landed on that page, I didn't
> know where
> > >>> to go
> > For the students:
> >
> > "someone" = systematic absence of information = 0 bits
> > "person" = systematic absence of information = 0 bits
> > "he" = 1 bit of information!
> >
> > --The other Gerard (1 bit of information!)
> >
> > ******************************************************************
> > Gerard J. Kleywegt
> >
> > http://xray.bmc.uu.se/gerard mailto:[log in to unmask]
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> > ******************************************************************
> > The opinions in this message are fictional. Any similarity
> > to actual opinions, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
> > ******************************************************************
> > Little known gastromathematical curiosity: let "z" be the
> > radius and "a" the thickness of a pizza. Then the volume
> > of that pizza is equal to pi*z*z*a !
> > ******************************************************************
> >
> >
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> --
> --
> Tim Gruene
> Head of the Centre for X-ray Structure Analysis
> Faculty of Chemistry
> University of Vienna
>
> Phone: +43-1-4277-70202
>
> GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A
>
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--
Rasmus H. Fogh Tel.: +44 (0)1223 353033
Global Phasing Ltd., Fax.: +44 (0)1223 366889
Sheraton House,
Castle Park,
Cambridge CB3 0AX
United Kingdom
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