Writing Gooder

Not listing these in any particular order; these are just some very good desktop backgrounds that you may enjoy as a reader/writer.

To see the full-size image, simply click on it.

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I’m not exactly sure when the whole grammatical convention of writing ‘he/she’ came into being when the gender was unclear, but I imagine it’s a pretty recent development.  For centuries (millenia?), you always wrote ‘he’ if the gender was not known.  But of course, doing that is no longer tenable.

So instead at some point, someone decided that from now on, we must write ‘he/she’ or ‘his/her’.  This idiosyncratic style of writing quickly caught on and became a grammatical convention.  But, it’s time to stop this.

In writing, we should strive to remove as many unnecessary words as possible (and not a word more).  This is especially true in academic writing (even though a great many academics have missed the memo…), but it’s also true in creative writing.  Using five words when just one word will do is nowadays regarded as absurd.

And this is seen very clearly with cases of ‘he/she’.  So instead of using two words when just one will do, just go with your gender.  If you’re a guy, use ‘he’.  If you’re a lady, use ‘she’.  Or, do the opposite.  It doesn’t matter which gender you go with as long as you’re consistent throughout the piece you’re writing.

But lets stop the he/she stuff.  It’s unnecessary, breaks the flow of whatever you’re writing, and is becoming absurd.