Dispatches from the Comma Mines, part 3

A textbook project that came in quite late, incomplete, on impossibly tight deadlines, and written by authors who didn't understand the publisher's requirements has been consuming my life and time. Rachel and I worked until close to midnight tonight, trying to meet tomorrow's impossible deadline. It's going to be quiet around TCI for the next little bit.

But, other people are writing interesting stuff, so I'll pass that along to you, with apologies that much of it is not precisely current:

Over at John Scalzi's Whatever, guest blogger Jim Winter takes on one of my favourite hobgoblins, and champions the singular they:

If you look at the history of the English language, it becomes clear that "they" used for gender non-specific singular is more than feasible. In fact, it's almost mandatory. Why? English has no gender-nonspecific singular pronoun except "it."

And we don't like calling people of indeterminate gender "it."

Hey, I'm with Jim. If it's good enough for Jane Austen, it's good enough for me.