My Grammar Rule by Melissa L. Martin

Why would I wish to change a grammar rule? Are they not as sacred as the Holy Grail? If you asked some English teachers (or as they call themselves now Language Arts Teacher) these questions some would proclaim that it is so I like the playfulness of what your doing here but it's a little confusing. As a suggestion you could revise it to read something like "Just ask an English teacher (or as they now call themsevles, Language Arts teacher) what he thinks about the idea of changing a grammar rule. Most likely he won't like the suggestion." . But the truth is the English language is always changing and therefore our grammar is always changing as well.(This opening is a little confusing. I would make it a little more clear with maybe another sentence or two)

After reading two books recently on the theme of style and writing, (Style Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams, and The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White),(I don't know if parenthesis are needed, maybe just commas) I decided upon the following idea for a proposed rule change. What I mean by a “rule change” is this(;) I'm not sure you need to include this at all, you could just start with "If I could come up with..."if I could come up with an alterartion on an existing accepted grammar rule what would I choose? Well after looking(Looking is not needed, just reading would be fine) and reading through these two books I came up with the following idea.(A colon or semi-colon here instead of a period) I chose the subject of gender and pronouns. (Maybe find a way to combine this sentence and the next one so it doesn't sound as repetitive).

I like controversy so I chose to make my rule about gender and pronouns/ word choice.(a suggestion, choose,chose,choice sounds repititive, maybe change it up a bit) The rule/s I am adding to can be found on p60 of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style(60) and p 34-35 of William’s Style.(34-35) My rule would be:(My rule is..) "Never use a pronoun such as him or her or he or she unless(him/her or he/she) 1. There is one subject being referred to. 2. And it is known the gender of that subject or 3. If there are multiple subjects and there is only one gender, such as the women. Otherwise use they or their. And(Start with 'Words') for words like policeman or mankind, substitute them with words such as police officer or humankind." Examples are great, use more if you can. By getting into this issue you can make people really re-think their common usage of language.
It might be benefical to make this more visual clear by stating your rule and then stating the qualifiers by using bullet points.

First let’s look at the original rules. From Strunk and White You might consider setting this quote up a little differently such as saying, "S&W tell us..." or "As explained in Elements of Styel..." “Do not use they when the antecedent is a distributive expression such as each, each one, everybody, every one, many a man. Use the singular pronoun…. ‘A similar fault is the use of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody, somebody, someone, the intention being either to avoid the awkward he or she or to avoid committing oneself to one or the other. … ‘The use of he as a pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. … Consider these strategies to avoid an awkward overuse of he or she or an unintentional emphasis on the masculine: Use the plural rather than the singular” (60). Example their instead of his or “Eliminate the pronoun altogether.” Or as they suggest you can substitute the second person for the third person.(This paragraph is confusing to me. I can't tell where the quotes end and a new one starts)

These ideas are all pretty effective depending on how you need to use them in your writing. One problem a writer might come up against is the situation where your subject and pronouns do not agree. According to Williams “We must use a singular pronoun to refer to a singular referent: “ Why I ask? “These days the plural is sometimes used in both senses. ..(Is this a new sentence?) But more formal usuage requires a singular pronoun; But observe the formal rule, and you risk the throny problem of sexist language” (Williams 34). Williams goes on to talk about how we are supposed to write in such a way as not to insult our readers. Duh! The real meat of the problem is what do we do when we cannot use he because it is sexist and they because it is grammatically incorrect? Do not even think about using the alternative of he/she or the most heinous s/he. (This paragraph needs some clarity)
And(A new paragraph should not start with And or But) in Maybe start this sentence instead with- It is Williams summary of the problem in which we get to the most likely outcome of the debate. Williams tell his readers that “For years to come, we will have a problem with the singular generic pronoun, and to some readers, any solution will seem awkward. I suspect that eventually we will accept the plural they as an entirely correct singular.” (35). (You could add more of your thoughts to make this paragraph longer)

Now we can explore why and how I came up with “my rule”. First, I must ask, isn’t it about time our language reflected the century or milenium we are living in? The women’s movement is far from a new phenonemem. We want equal pay and equal treatment, and while we are at it to have our sentences be as equal as we are as well. We are not asking for this for all of womankind, but for all of humanity. Yes, the root word there humanity contains the word man in it. I am well aware of this feature. You can also say “for all the people”, or for civilazation as we know it.

Secondly, many more people care about sexism in language then whether these pronouns agree with what they are supposed to. I do not recall any English teachers burning their bras over incorrect grammar usuage. So I guess I might humbly argue that only male English teachers would insist on using the pronoun him. I know that is a rather bold statement.

And furthermore, if you do happen to know whether your subject/s are male or female and you can safely use the him or her etc. then by all means go for it. Just when you have more than one gender represented go neutral.(What are your suggestions for neutral. We know from reading, but consider that other readers have not read what we have about the topic) Or if you do not know the gender due to the size of the group or for whatever reason, go with the use of they, their and so on. And yes we need to reevaluate our use of word choices for occupations such as policeman, mailman, fireman, or the use of mankind etc. What is wrong with police officer? We could perhaps borrow from some more English words and call them constables or the like. We can make so many more consesations to be politically correct, what are a few more in the English department?