s/he

IMHO it SHOULD be acceptable and I use it in informal writing all the time. It is NOT acceptable in formal writing, so I use they which is more acceptable to me than using he to mean all people, but is not grammatically correct. Hmph.

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

"She or he" is the form that should probably be used in formal contexts, since it's straightforward, unambiguous and fairly common.

Of course, a proper unsexed pronoun in English would solve all these problems.

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

Personally, I use s/he when ever i need to refer to both. But I don't write many formal documents. So thus, I have no idea. But i put thumbs up to s/he! :D

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

not to be sexist... but she or he sounds backwards... i have always heard he or she. and in an official document i would us "he or she" not "he/she" and s/he is very informal.

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

Before everything got so politically correct, I would recommend just using "he," as this is technically the correct way to do it. However, most people don't know this, and would probably get offended. =(

As Steve said, I would use "he or she."

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

The main problem with "s/he" is this: how the hell is it pronounced?

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

In my opinion "s/he" should be driven off the face of the planet. It's an unpronouncable symbol that stops me in my tracks each time I encounter it. Either recast the sentence or give in to the singular "they."

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse

Use "they".

0 vote Vote!  •  URL to this comment  •  Report Abuse