Re: [rfc/rfa:doc] INTEGER_TO_ADDRESS; Was: INTEGER_TO_ADDRESS(), thoughts?

Martin M. Hunt
2001-10-10T15:14:00Z

On Wednesday 03 October 2001 11:10 pm, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 16:29:15 -0400
> > From: Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>
> >
> > > Since most of this sentence is in plural, I think it should start with
> > > "When the users copy".
> >
> > Hmm, I changed it all to single.
>
> You did?
>
> > + @emph{Pragmatics: When the user copies a well defined expression from
> > + their source code and pass it, as a parameter, to @value{GDBN}'s
> > + @code{print} command, they should get the same value as would have been
> > + computed by the target program.
>
> Here "When the user copies" is single, but the rest of the sentence
> says "their source", "pass it", and "they should get", which are all
> plural. To my ear this sounds wrong, but that's just me.

It is wrong. "pass" must be "passes" to match the singular "user".

"their" is singular in this context and has been used as a gender-neutral
pronoun for at least 500 years. Likewise "they" is singular in this context.

--
Martin Hunt
GDB Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.