By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--March 27, 2012
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You can lead a student to knowledge, according to an old academic saying, but you can’t make him or her think.Crikies. “Him or her”? This is a big bugaboo of mine. It drives me nuts to see people adding “him or her” all the time for fear of being called a sexist. The proper way to have written that would have simply been, “…but you can’t make him think.” There is absolutely no reason to add the “or her” to the sentence. It is clumsy, for one thing, unnecessary of course, and just a stupid paean to political correctness because using the male pronoun in this sentence is gender neutral already. You see, whenever you use the generic words him, his, or he, you are saying “people.” You are NOT limiting your scope to males. “Him” in the case of Page’s opening sentence would have simply meant all students, not just males. Remember, “all men are create equal,” does not mean just men. It means man, as in humanity.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.