D users in Munich, Rome, Venice, or Frankfurt?

[Georg Wrede]

BCS wrote:
> Hello Georg,
> 
>>
>> A serious point, however, is that (in my first language) Finnish, the
>> spoken language doesn't only *not* differentiate between gender, it
>> also /doesn't/ differentiate between humans and other instances (be
>> they living or inanimate!!!). You'd say
>>
>> "se meni ulos" -- {he | she | the dog} went out
>> "se putos" -- {he | she | the dog | a flowerpot | a brick} dropped
>> Contrast this to "modern, politically correct American English", where
>> one says "she" of the programmer, and "they" of any third person. The
>> latter of which is not only semantically + grammatically incorrect, it
>> also makes sentences cumbersome, but foremost, diffuses and murks up
>> the original intent of the author.
>>
> 
> Ah! One of my favorite qwerks of the English language, how to refer to a 
> specific single someone of unknown gender without insulting them: "it"?


Yeah, you can't use "it", because that's really derogatory. I remember a 
movie (probably something with Meryl Streep), where this person referred 
to the spouse as "it".