Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

STYLE
Many modern readers would not agree. An example of the turn
in thinking can be found in the 1976 update of Dr. Benjamin Spack's
best-selling Baby and Child Care, where he states in a foreword:
The main reason for this [revision] is to eliminate the
sexist biases of the sort that help to create and perpetuate
discrimination against girls and women. Earlier ed'itions
referred to the child of indeterminate sex as "he". Though
this in one sense is only a literary tradition, it, like many
other traditions, implies that the masculine sex has some
kind of priority.
Feeling that he is inappropriate when applied to both sexes is one
thing; finding a graceful alternative is another. Strunk and White
raised some valid objections when they went on to say:
Substituting he or she in its place. . . . often doesn't
work, if only because repetition makes it sound boring or
silly. . . . The juror recently raised about "he" would be
more impressive if there were a handy substitute for the
word. Urifortunately, there isn't-or at least, no one has
come up with one yet. If you think "she" is a handy substitute
for "he, " try it and see what happens. Alternatively,
put all controversial nouns in the plural and avoid the
choice of sex altogether, and you may find your prose
sounding general and diffuse as a result.
Clearly, the "recently raised" furor hasn't gone away, but neither
has anyone come up yet with a handy substitute. (For some reason,
"shim" hasn't caught on.) The challenge, therefore, is to find less
handy substitutes. These sometimes take a bit of ingenuity but, if
successful, allow you to work around the problem without your readers
even noticing. The pros and cons of various strategies are
discussed below.
USING HE/SHE, SIRE, OR THEY
The solutions that are the easiest to apply are also the least likely
to please: putting down he/she or s/he, or using they as a singular
pronoun. The first two are jarring; the third ungrammatical. All three
seem like cop-outs (as if you couldn't take the trouble to come up
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