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The successful executive has confidence, and s/he can communicate effectively with everyone.
ALTERNATE USING “HE” AND “SHE”If you have a fairly long text that features a lot of pronouns, you can alternate using “he” and “she,” showing equal favor to both. That’s the primary approach chosen for this book.However, it won’t work if you have a string of sentences that require the pronoun; the alternation will seem bizarre and confusing.
USE “THEY” AND “THEIR” AS SINGULAR PRONOUNSMany writers use “they” and “their” to refer back to a singular subject, when the gender of that subject is unknown:
Everyone should lock their office door at the end of the day.Somebody got their handprints all over the bathroom mirror; they ought to go back and clean it off.
Sticklers and traditionalists will point out that this construction is grammatically incorrect, because “everyone” is singular and “their” is plural. They’re right, and you should beaware that some readers won’t approve of this solution to the gender-neutral challenge. However, it’s an approach that many, if not most, people have adopted in everyday speech. Thereare examples of “they” used as a singular pronoun going back as far as the fourteenth century, and it was only in the nineteenth century that grammarians began to object to it. For us -twenty-first-century types, using “they” as a singular pronoun is probably all right in most settings; in very formal writing, it might be smart to find another alternative.
PLURALIZE YOUR SENTENCEInstead of making a plural work as a singular, and possibly alienating some readers, consider pluralizing the whole sentence:
Successful executives have confidence, and they can communicate effectively with everyone.Workers are only as good as their tools.
REWRITE THE SENTENCE TO AVOID USING THIRD-PERSON PRONOUNSSometimes the best solution is to rewrite the sentence without third-person pronouns. This approach is always safe:
Please lock your office door at the end of the day.Whoever got handprints all over the mirror should go back and clean it up.
BE CONSISTENTWhatever option you choose, be sure you implement it consistently; don’t switch from one style to another in midstream.
Not:
The new STEP app allows users to choose what action to take once he/she logs in.
But:
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