Pronoun Blues...or why I hate the "He/She" thing...

This is a recycled post.

Each manager is responsible for his/her department. He/She must ensure that productivity meets the company’s projection. Each manager is also responsible for the welfare of his/her workers. He/She must ensure that they get the best provisions in operational safety both in training and equipment. Each manager must also ensure that his/her boss is always happy, and that he/she always smiles because a person who smiles a lot is a happy person.*

The introduction of this essay is not supposed to make any sense. It is just a series of sentences I made up to show something that has been bothering me for a long time, the he-slash-she thing. I like my reading to be smooth, but whenever I encounter this he-slash-she thing it slows me down. It’s cumbersome, complex, and the slash gave it the appearance of a mathematical formula. (I suffer from a genetically acquired psychosomatic allergy to mathematics. Translation: I hate mathematics.) What made it more difficult is that it destroys the rhythm of a sentence. To illustrate: A student should turn his/her assignment on time. How will one read this sentence? “A student should turn his or her assignment on time” or “A student should turn his, her assignment on time”. Both readings are correct but there is a price to pay—fluidity.

The he-slash-she is the modern solution to one of the difficulties in grammar, the gender pronoun antecedent agreement (as the opening paragraph shows). The he-slash-she is the convention used to avoid sexism. Before, the generic (covers both sexes) pronoun used is “he”. Although still acceptable, it is now considered as sexist, chauvinistic, and politically incorrect. The argument is obvious, “he” is a masculine pronoun and the gender sensitive people feel that it connotes “male priority and superiority”. But this was not always the case. The generic “he” is an innovation introduced by grammarians only in the 18th and 19th centuries. Before, at least from the 1500’s, the correct sex-indefinite pronoun is “they”, which is still used in casual English today but is now considered as ungrammatical.

This hullabaloo about generic pronoun is a linguistic quest for accuracy and for political correctness and gender equality. But to press this search for gender equality in language further would result to absurdities. If the argument in using the he-slash-she is to avoid sexism, then why not push it a little further and use she-slash-he to prioritize “she”. In fact, I read an article arguing that for those people who find he/she cumbersome, in the name of fairness, since “he” has been used for generations, should consider using “she”. Fine, but isn’t that sexist too. (Even in theology (religious study) this sexism in language is creating debates. Consider this footnote from an essay on the Holy Spirit and Liberation Movements by Dr. Richard Tholin: “One form of oppression is found in language, in this case, the use of masculine for all generic terms. Much of the quoted material in this paper uses male generic language. In the lecture form that language was changed to more inclusive terms. Readers might well attempt the same discipline. In addition, where the pronoun is used for the Holy Spirit the spoken version used “she”…there are some hotly debated linguistic arguments for this usage. In any event, use of the female pronoun for the Spirit can be a constructive way to move beyond exclusively male designations for the triune God (Trinity).” This is absurd. What should be done instead is to avoid using pronouns for God. 

If gender sensitivity is the issue, then we should also reconsider using the word “woma(e)n”. Since woman is derived from the root man—in short, woman is a marked man (no pun intended). “Marked” in linguistics refers to the alteration of meaning by adding a linguistic particle that has no meaning of its own. The unmarked (base) form of the word carries the meaning. The word mann in old English denoted either “man” or “person,” and the compound word wifmann meant female person. The base “man” is masculine and the “wo” from “wif” is the added linguistic particle denotes the female gender to the root man. So, woma(e)n should be out for the obvious reason.

“Female”, following the above argument should also be out. “Male” from Latin ”mas” is the unmarked word that means “man” and “fe” from the Latin “femina” (women) is the added linguistic particle, thus, “female” transliterated could mean “feminine man” (no pun intended also). Female, definitely, should be out too.

Although many consider “lady” as aristocratic and inappropriate in a classless society, it is still used today. In greetings, it’s “Ladies and Gentleman” (notice the precedence of Ladies which is condescending to some), in comfort rooms it’s “ladies”, etc. for some “lady” denotes class but for some it is an anachronism. Is lady then an alternative to “woma(e)n” and “female”. This may come as a surprise but “lady” comes from the old English “hlaefdig”, “kneader of bread”. No expounding necessary, “lady” definitely is out. That pretty much clears the slate.

To be free from masculine tinge, this search for a term for the other gender can go on (“other gender” is problematic too since “other” implies the precedent existence of the “first” gender thus the need for the qualifier “other”) but still it will not solve anything. Words mean what we want them to mean and its connotations can change with convention. Today, in Hollywood, the word actress is disdained. Alfre Woodard (Desperate Housewives), an Oscar nominee for best supporting actress says she identifies herself as an actor because “actresses worry about eyelashes and cellulite, and woman who are actors worry about the character we are playing.” I once heard a Filipino woman government official insisted she be called “The Chairman” and not “the chairwoman, or the chairperson (I think it was the late PCGG Chairman Haydee Yorac) because she reasoned that she is as good as any man. The suffix –ess and –ette can also connote frivolousness that it is now seldom used formally. It’s now director and not directress, host and not hostess, etc. Isn’t this confusing?

If “women” is historically derived from man, hence connotes inferiority hence it should not be used, and if female is also a derivative of male, hence inferior too, and if lady is a “kneader of bread”…no discussion here, definitely out. Who knows, why not also object to the use of the noun and the adjective “human and humane” because of the “man” in there. Why stop there? “Humanity” has man in there too.

I’m not a linguist. Heck, I’m barely into grammar and punctuations. But what I’m trying to say is, why complicate things, why not just be politically or grammatically incorrect than use this he-slash-she thing. The damned formula disrupts my reading!

It’s a good thing Filipino pronouns are neuter maybe it shows that we look at both gender equally.

*(Of course the paragraph can be rephrased using the third person plural. Managers are responsible…They must…etc. I used the third person singular for illustration.)

Writing

I am doing a little experiment on how to make my grade school pupil, especially the grades one and two, write. It is difficult enough to make them read, how much more to make them write! I have read some of John Holt’s idea about reading and writing and I seriously take his “doctrine” that motivating children to read and write is the primary concern of the teacher, and the rests are accidentals. (I don’t know if I said it accurately.) And somehow his ideas (not all of them) inspire me to try to be creative with my approaches to teahing.

To encourage my pupils to write, I usually give them a piece of bond paper, tell them to draw anything they like on it like robots, or cartoon characters or dinosaurs; anything that would stir up their imagination. And when they are already busy drawing, I would tell story of space battles, of wars, of a stray dog ripping my dog’s ear, a fairy tale or I would just make up things, anything to stir up my pupil’s imagination so that they could write and express without any inhibition. (Holt mentioned how Professor S.I. Hayakawa invented a technique in teaching writing to his freshman students—he tells his students to write about anything, any topic, for thirty minutes without stopping. Of course I am not teaching freshmen. I am teaching grade school children who are non native English speakers. But how will I know if this method works at grade school level unless I try it. The method may sound like Freudian or psychotherapeutic blah, blah…but ...who cares! It’s up to the teacher to be discreet on whatever their students may have consciously or unconsciously revealed in their writings.)

I am getting good results. One grade three pupil wrote 80, a grade two wrote 52 and a grade one pupil wrote 25 simple sentences in English, the minimum I got was five simple sentences that is grammatically more acceptable than some of my classmates (excuse me my math and science major classmates) writings. And all I did was to tell them to draw something, or to look at a book and write anything they can write about in there. (Sometimes I tell them that I could see sentences floating around the classroom like, “The light is on. There is a poster on the wall. Agybert is under the chair.” Etc.)

I am surprised at the result!

One of the difficulties I encountered was on translation. My pupils ask me to translate Filipino words into English. I ask them how they will use it in a sentence but I know that if I become too technical, they may loose interest in what they are doing. So, I just write translations of Filipino words into English on the white board. The good thing about this is that they are adding more to their vocabulary bank with very little effort on their part, but the downside is, problem will arise in usage. But these things, grammar and usage, are easy to fix as long as the pupil is writing. The most difficult problem to fix is when pupils begin to hate writing-- when they stop writing.

I limit my lectures to five to ten minutes because, honestly, they are boring!

I will continue to write some of my observations here on a weekly basis, and I welcome ideas, comments and suggestion on teaching no matter how unorthodox they are.

(Maybe I will include this on the narratives of my practice teaching. But then again who will read them in the campus! This is why up to now I am not motivated to revise my thesis on student organizations and leadership because I know it would not be read.)

I will try to write something about child behavior too, from my student teaching experience, that is, if I can or if I could.

Ooopss

Ooops!

I got used to writing directly, not thinking much about grammar and mechanics and usage and all that English things that when I got to teaching grammar at grade school, I brought this carelessness along. (To tell the truth, I have difficulty with grammar.) I gave my pupils some homework and I didn’t notice the subject verb agreement. And during the PTF meeting, one parent showed the head teacher the error in the home work. The head teacher kindly reminded of the error. I was a little disappointed with myself because if it was not for that one parent, who knows many errors I could have committed. Anyway, I have to be careful now.

Children are so meticulous. I was writing on the board and I didn’t put hooks on my “g’s” after a while, they all shouted, “Sir, is that a “9”, or is that a “q.” They are driving me nuts!

Carabao English

One of the first things I learned while watching Sesame Street is the realization that there’s many English. There’s Birtish English, there’s American, there’s Black American English, there Hispanic, and being one of the English speaking countries, I am sure there’s such a thing as Filipino English or Carabao English. The differences can be as minor as pronunciation to as major as grammar and idioms.

I saw this TV special about China’s preparation for the Olympics. In the program the Chinese were shown implementing programs to train their people, especially those in the Beijing area, to speak English. To check if the program was working, one of the reporters rode a taxi and he asked the driver to take him to the railroad station. The taxi driver was scratching his head and told the interpreter that he can’t understand. They tried it to different taxi drivers and the result were always the same. Even simple words like proper nouns were beyond the common Chinese to understand. This made me realize that even though English as a second language is declining in the Philippines yet we are still better at it than other countries for even the smallest child here have enough vocabulary for an understandable and decent conversation in Carabao English (or Pidgin English).

Grammar

Today was my first day in the structure of English class. As our instructor was lecturing on the common grammatical errors (she called these errors “heinous crimes”) committed by students and all the people in the world, I suddenly had the urge to open my blog, reread all that I had written there, check all the grammatical errors and correct them one by one. Nah, the committee in my head told me. Just stay put and do what you always liked to do, type words, sentences and paragraphs at random with the hope that with the amount of the inane things you have typed, there will come a time, because of overexposure, when you will be comfortable in English, both written and oral, that nobody can tell whether you’re a Filipino who grew up in America from a Filipino call center agent who grew up in the slum.

So the instructor was enumerating all these errors like tenses, enunciation, diction and impropriety, synonyms and stuffs that I know will only give me depression and prevent me from typing and all the while I was thinking…hmmmm…She’s right, correct practice makes perfect. Read, read, read, she shouted and I say amen to that.

I’ll try to remember these grammar rules for her sake. Why? I like the teacher. Period.

Foul language

Language is dynamic.

The Filipinos had long prided themselves with their command of the English language. This thanks to the aggressive American colonial education program and evangelical missionary efforts in the country during the early 1900’s. And this proved to be a great advantage for the country for it gave us the edge over our Asian brothers in diplomacy and in the academics in the early to the middle part of the 20th century. But because of the stigma of colonialism and the search for nationalism, government policy makers embarked on a Filipinization program. The program kicked off with creating a national language based on the hundred different language groups (not dialects) in the archipelago. The aim is not only linguistic but also political for a national language can unite this country of many nations.

But the program failed miserably. We didn’t create a national language what came out of the effort is in reality Tagalog—just plain old garnished Tagalog. Talk to other people in the provinces using the so-called national language and they will tell you that you’re speaking Tagalog. Filipino is an illusion. There’s no linguistic amalgamation that occurred, that’s why Cebuanos almost revolted when they found out that Filipino would be based on Tagalog and not on Cebuano, which is the local language spoken by more Filipinos. For the Cebuanos the greatest consideration the Tagalog based Filipino proponents took into consideration is pure and simple politics; the capitol is in Tagalog region. The sad thing is there is still more Cebuano speakers than the Tagalog based Filipino. So much for a national language.

Aside from failing to create a true national language, Filipinization destroyed our English foundation for in order to promote the newly created national language and at the same time promote nationalism (the catch word during the post colonial period), the education bureau replaced English with bilingualism or the use of English and Filipino as the medium of instruction in public schools. We must remember that for 50 years the Americans initiated a massive English based education program in the country that resulted in the literacy rate of the Filipinos that our Asian neighbors envied then. But the irony is that the people who benefited from these programs were the ones who destroyed our proficiency in English in the name of nationalism. We didn’t achieve the nationalistic fervor the program wanted to achieve, but at least Filipinization and bilingualism was able to destroy our English proficiency and its intellectual benefits-- so much with Filipinization.

The search for a national language ended with the Tagalog based Filipino. But as argued above, Filipino, aside from earning the contempt from people of other language groups, is only predominantly used in the Tagalog regions. And although required as one of the mediumsof instruction in public schools, what is actually happening is that people in non-Tagalog regions use their own vernacular and not Filipino in teaching in their schools thus defeating nationalization. Aside from failing to unite the nation with one language, Filipinization did not even create an illusion of linguistic unity for the Filipinos. The buy Filipino made movement didn’t even buy Filipino. So much with nationalism.

Of course the formulators of the Tagalog based Filipino didn’t foresee the emergence of mass media and the power of information technology over language (only hindsight can do that) for if they did they would have stayed with English. What happened and is happening is that a new national language is emerging. It is neither Filipino nor English, it is both. The emergence of Taglish (this is not bilingualism but the fusion of English and Tagalog) is inevitable. This is because of the similarities in English and Filipino syntax (sentence structure), morphology (our rules on affixations is almost the same), and phonetics (our how you pronounce it-spell it rule is adaptable to English). Unfortunately proficiency in Taglish means incompetence in both English and Filipino. So much with Taglish.

The search for a national language is also the search for the true Filipino. This is has been going on even before the Americans gave the Philippines it’s independence (why do Filipinos keep insisting that we became in dependent in 1898 when in reality the last foreign forces that left the Philippine soil was in the late 1980’s.) The search for this Malay identity sometimes even took a ridiculous turn. An example is Jose E. Marco’s supposed discovery of the code of Kalantiaw. The logic behind this hoax was to prove to the world (or Americans) that the Filipinos were an ancient civilized people—they have government and laws. Mr. Marco forgot to take into considerations that with the harshness and barbarity of this so called code of Kalantiaw even the Vandals and the Barbarians would deny ownership of them. The sad thing was the Filipino swallowed this hoax because the Pinoys wanted to believe the precedence of Filipino civilization over the American’s. Why, there’s even a TV action series called “Mga Alagad ni Kalantiaw” in the early 1980’s.

Another ridiculous ridiculousness is the Marcos Maharlika (royalty) project. Everything was called Maharlika in those days. Channel 4 was Maharlika Broadcasting Corporation (the Government’s TV station), there’s Maharlika Highway, Maharlika Building, etc. One U.P. anthropologist did an etymological study of the word Maharlika and he found out that it means sexual virility, the true distinctive of the royalty and nobility. Why there was even the plan to change the name of the Philippines to the Republic of Maharlika, a true Filipino name—the Republic of Erection.

No wonder the Filipinos are multiplying like rats.

Writing should be fun

“Kuya George how do I write an essay about blah, blah?” “Kuya George, help me, I need to write a reaction paper on blah, blah. “Daddy George, help me with this blah, blah.” “Papa George how will I say this in English?”

“Just write”. I tell them. “Just write.”

“My grammar is poor and I fear that the teacher will fail me.” “I’m ashamed of my spelling; the teacher will surely fail me.” “I fear this, I fear that…”

“Just write.” I tell them. “Just write.”

Write the first thing that comes into your mind. Write the first word that comes into your mind. Write in whatever sentence structure, no matter how unconventional it maybe, that comes into your mind. Just write and don’t bother me. This is what I always tell them. Don’t bother me, just write.

The greatest hindrance to learning how to write is the things that should have made writing easy—prescription and rules.
For example:
George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language gives these six rules.
1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive when you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I like Orwell’s Politics and the English Language for it is a valid criticism of “dragging” English but when he starts dishing out rules like these, his essay becomes pretentious. He has no right to give any rules on English for English is and will always be arbitrary and dynamic—its behavior changes with time, geography, and culture that use it as a second language and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, not even the king and queen of England.
When I read his essay, I can’t write for days because I always think of “what will Orwell say of my compositions.” These rules turned my mind legalistic and not creative. Writing should be fun. Rule number six is the only rule I subscribe to, the rest are for the grammatically dogmatic entities with buttocks injected with botox (butolin toxin relaxes the skin).

Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style has twenty one rules on writing. Twenty one! (My copy of The Element is a second hand third hand third edition that I bought for nine pesos. Who knows, the fourth edition may already contain three million rules.)
1. Place yourself in the background
2. Write in a way that comes naturally
3. Work from a suitable design
4. Write with nouns and verbs
5. Revise and rewrite
6. Do not this
7. Do not do that blah, blah, blah
8-9 blah, blah,blah
Twenty one rules that will bother you when you’re writing, “Am I over doing this, under doing that, how many verbs have I used, how many nouns, no adjectives, must keep the adjectives to minimum, too many qualifiers, am I too breezy, am I orthodox or catholic, maybe I’m explaining too much, are my adverbs aardvark or are they awkward or backward, whose speaking here? A spirit?, am I using fancy words or 24 karat words, dialect this dialect that, avoid this, avoid that, be this be that...for dos for kwatro naman that’s why I am majoring in English because I hate formulas and here you have all these formulation and doctrines that will kill creativity anytime. Rule number two is the only rule I subscribe to. The rest are for the bland people who have enough space in their heads for all these rules.

John Trimble, not to be outdone by the other English-men and grammarians, has twenty six rules to confound student writers--twenty six rules that will promote impotence and allergy to writing.
1. Write with the assumption that your reader….blah, blah…
2. Write as if you’re actually talking….blah, blah, blah….
3. Substitute the pronoun that for which blah, blah, blah,
4. Use occasional contractions…
5-26 blah, blah, blah
The rest is too long and too technical and too much.
I subscribe to rule number two alone. The rest are for the nuclear physicists to decipher.

So many rules on writing, so many how to, so many how not to, I’m not saying these articles are worthless or useless, in fact anyone who wants to write must read all these things once in a while. What I’m trying to say is, if these prescriptions and rules start to bother your writing, if they start to make you impotent, if they start to make you legalistic, if they start to turn you into a linguistic Pharisee, if they start to have a voice of their own, if they start to hold back your hand from writing, if they kill your expression, if they destroy your spontaneity, if they start to irritate you, if they make your head spin, if they blur your vision, if they give you diarrhea… if, if, if, if, ..Then throw them away. Read them for entertainment and for nothing else for there are so many things to say and there are so many ways to say it!

John Holt (I love this guy) says: We learn to write by writing, not by reading other people’s idea about writing.
Getrude Stein when asked by a reporter “Why don’t you write the way you speak?” to which Stein replied “Why don’t you read the way I write.”

Writing should be fun and rules are meant to be broken.

Nah, to be honest, I’m just trying to justify my bad essays.

(“What is happening to George?” My siblings maybe wondering aloud, “Even his writing is nihilistic”, to which my mother would reply, “Aren’t you glad you’re brother’s learning how to write German!”)

Pronoun Blues

Each manager is responsible for his/her department. He/She must ensure that productivity meets the company’s projection. Each manager is also responsible for the welfare of his/her workers. He/She must ensure that they get the best provisions in operational safety both in training and equipment. Each manager must also ensure that his/her boss is always happy, and that he/she always smiles because a person who smiles a lot is a happy person.*

The introduction of this essay is not supposed to make any sense. It is just a series of sentences I made up to show something that has been bothering me for a long time, the he-slash-she thing. I like my reading to be smooth, but whenever I encounter this he-slash-she thing it slows me down. It’s cumbersome, complex, and the slash gave it the appearance of a mathematical formula. (I suffer from a genetically acquired psychosomatic allergy to mathematics. Translation: I hate mathematics.) What made it more difficult is that it destroys the rhythm of a sentence. To illustrate: A student should turn his/her assignment on time. How will one read this sentence? “A student should turn his or her assignment on time” or “A student should turn his, her assignment on time”. Both readings are correct but there is a price to pay—fluidity.

The he-slash-she is the modern solution to one of the difficulties in grammar, the gender pronoun antecedent agreement (as the opening paragraph shows). The he-slash-she is the convention used to avoid sexism. Before, the generic (covers both sexes) pronoun used is “he”. Although still acceptable, it is now considered as sexist, chauvinistic, and politically incorrect. The argument is obvious, “he” is a masculine pronoun and the gender sensitive people feel that it connotes “male priority and superiority”. But this was not always the case. The generic “he” is an innovation introduced by grammarians only in the 18th and 19th centuries. Before, at least from the 1500’s, the correct sex-indefinite pronoun is “they”, which is still used in casual English today but is now considered as ungrammatical.

This hullabaloo about generic pronoun is just as much a linguistic quest for accuracy as it is for gender equality. But to press this search for gender equality in language further would result to absurdities. If the argument in using the he-slash-she is to avoid sexism, then why not push it a little further and use she-slash-he to prioritize “she”. In fact, I read an article arguing that for those people who find he/she cumbersome, in the name of fairness, since “he” has been used for generations, should consider using “she”. Fine, but isn’t that sexist too. (Even in theology (religious study) this sexism in language is creating debates. Consider this footnote from an essay on the Holy Spirit and Liberation Movements by Dr. Richard Tholin: “One form of oppression is found in language, in this case, the use of masculine for all generic terms. Much of the quoted material in this paper uses male generic language. In the lecture form that language was changed to more inclusive terms. Readers might well attempt the same discipline. In addition, where the pronoun is used for the Holy Spirit the spoken version used “she”…there are some hotly debated linguistic arguments for this usage. In any event, use of the female pronoun for the Spirit can be a constructive way to move beyond exclusively male designations for the triune God (Trinity).” This is absurd. What should be done instead is to avoid using pronouns for God. )

If gender sensitivity is the issue, then we should also reconsider using the word “woma(e)n”. Since woman is derived from the root man—in short, woman is a marked man (no pun intended). “Marked” in linguistics refers to the alteration of meaning by adding a linguistic particle that has no meaning of its own. The unmarked (base) form of the word carries the meaning. The word mann in old English denoted either “man” or “person,” and the compound word wifmann meant female person. The base “man” is masculine and the “wo” from “wif” is the added linguistic particle denotes the female gender to the root man. So, woma(e)n should be out for the obvious reason.

“Female”, following the above argument should also be out. “Male” from Latin ”mas” is the unmarked word that means “man” and “fe” from the Latin “femina” (women) is the added linguistic particle, thus, “female” transliterated could mean “feminine man” (no pun intended also). Female, definitely, should be out too.
Although many consider “lady” as aristocratic and inappropriate in a classless society, it is still used today. In greetings, it’s “Ladies and Gentleman” (notice the precedence of Ladies which is condescending to some), in comfort rooms, it’s “ladies”, etc. for some “lady” denotes class but for some it is an anachronism. Is lady then an alternative to “woma(e)n” and “female”. This may come as a surprise but “lady” comes from the old English “hlaefdig”, “kneader of bread”. No expounding necessary, “lady” definitely is out. That pretty much clears the slate.

To be free from masculine tinge, this search for a term for the other gender can go on (“other gender” is problematic too since “other” implies the precedent existence of the “first” gender thus the need for the qualifier “other”) but still it will not solve anything. Words mean what we want them to mean and its connotations can change with convention. Today, in Hollywood, the word actress is disdained. Alfre Woodard (Desperate Housewives), an Oscar nominee for best supporting actress says she identifies herself as an actor because “actresses worry about eyelashes and cellulite, and woman who are actors worry about the character we are playing.” I once heard a Filipino woman government official insisted she be called “The Chairman” and not “the chairwoman, or the chairperson (I think it was the late PCGG Chairman Haydee Yorac) because she reasoned that she is as good as any man. The suffix –ess and –ette can also connote frivolousness that it is now seldom used formally. It’s now director and not directress, host and not hostess, etc. Isn’t this confusing?

If “women” is historically derived from man, hence connotes inferiority hence it should not be used, and if female is also a derivative of male, hence inferior too, and if lady is a “kneader of bread”…no discussion here, definitely out. Who knows, why not also object to the use of the noun and the adjective “human and humane” because of the “man” in there. Why stop there? “Humanity” has man in there too.
I’m not a linguist. Heck, I’m barely into grammar and punctuations. But what I’m trying to say is, why complicate things, why not just be politically or grammatically incorrect than use this he-slash-she thing. The damned formula disrupts my reading!

It’s a good thing Filipino pronouns are neuter.

*(Of course the paragraph can be rephrased using the third person plural. Managers are responsible…They must…etc. I used the third person singular for illustration.)