svn commit: r43163 - head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/security

[Warner Losh]

On Nov 11, 2013, at 7:58 AM, Gábor Kövesdán wrote:

> On 2013.11.11. 10:21, Benedict Reuschling wrote:
>> Author: bcr
>> Date: Mon Nov 11 09:21:05 2013
>> New Revision: 43163
>> URL:http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/43163
>> 
>> Log:
>>   Make the security charter wording less gender biased.
>>      Submitted by:	Kubilay Kocak
>>   Approved by:	des
>> 
>> Modified:
>>   head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/security/charter.xml
>> 
>> Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/security/charter.xml
>> ==============================================================================
>> --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/security/charter.xml	Mon Nov 11 06:54:40 2013	(r43162)
>> +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/security/charter.xml	Mon Nov 11 09:21:05 2013	(r43163)
>> @@ -73,11 +73,11 @@
>>        <li>Veto: The Security Officer has the final say in security
>>        matters, and may request the back-out of any commits or
>> -      elimination of any subsystems that he considers detrimental
>> +      elimination of any subsystems that they consider detrimental
>>        to the security of FreeBSD.</li>
> My English is not perfect but is there such a use? Subject and verb in singular and pronoun in plural? This sounds strange to me. I often see she/her being used when the gender is not determined by the subject but I have never seen this use.

This is the most common gender neutral language in English, at least in the US. And yes, the usage that was committed was correct. Well, come to think about it, the grammar police may object...  But common usage suggest this is the least-objectionable way people find to do this. he/she is considered too awkward, (s)he is considered too weird. s/he is also too weird.

Warner