Pronouns

May. 30th, 2008 02:22 pm
jack: (Default)
[personal profile] jack
"When John was a woman, [he/she/they] said '...' " Which pronoun do you prefer? (That is, "he" is appropriate for John now, "she" would be appropriate for what John was then, and "they" would specify the ambiguity.)

"The things God or Jesus [was/were] recorded as saying are ..." Which pronoun do you prefer? (That is, do you treat them as two separate people (were)? Or one person (was)? :))

Obviously both are arbitrary, and I think both sufficiently specialised that most people wouldn't mind which you used, I just wondered if anyone had a strong opinion :)

Date: 2008-05-30 05:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com
I know, it's frustrating, isn't it? You could split the content into two comments :)