Re: Epicene pronoun in english?

From:    And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
> I've noticed that a disproportionate amount of prescriptivism
> that I encounter comes from America (-- written English, this
> is). Not that your average American is a prescriptivist,
> but rather than your average prescriptivist is an American.
> (within the anglo world, of course)
There are couple questions involved here:
(1) How much of the gross amount of publication in English comes
from American publishing companies?  And of that, how many of
the writers were reared in America?
(2) What percentage of English speakers live in America?

I can't readily speak to the answer to number (1), so I won't
venture a guess.  I do know, though, that more than half of all
native English speakers live in the United States, so that in
itself has some meaning.  (That particular ratio is actually
*increasing*, but of course if you count second or third language
speakers it's declining.)

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637