Interesting. Last year, I think it was, I made a resolution to not use the term “African-American” unless quoting someone, referring to a university’s African-American Studies program, etc. I slipped up once, but that’s not too bad.

As for pronouns, I try to stick to the traditional generic pronoun, “he”, but one hears that so rarely these days that it really does sound kind of awkward (though I still can’t stand “they”). I might have to move in your direction one of these days.

On “they”, I’ve found it quite funny to see women use it in personal ads to refer to the type of man they are looking for (perhaps some men are doing that as well — I haven’t been checking).

Yeah, ‘they’ seems to show up when someone is trying to really emphasize the generality of their comment, although that does indeed seem a bit odd in a personal ad.

I”m sympathetic to the argument that “he” is the official english pronoun for non-determinate situations, but since when did we really care about officiality in our language? Ultimately, I figure language is a convention and that convention has got to be shaped by our perceptions of the world. Probably vice a versa too. Using “he” all the time, when it doesn’t necessarily refer to a “he”, seems strikingly like an admission that maleness is the default gender in our society. Which is true in practice I suppose, but I have no particular desire to underwrite that reality with my own behavior.

I’ve never decided what to do about hyphenated nationality. I lean towards your take on it, but I’m confused.

I didn’t realize you were Canadian until reading more of your blog just now. Perhaps things are a bit different there w.r.t. the hyphenated nationalities than they are in the U.S.?