pronouns - Do you use the masculine or feminine with "victim"?

My mother tongue is Latin-based so I'm used to differences in male/female for neutral words. I don't know how this would work with some words in English.

If the "victim" in a sentence is neutral (ie: it could be either a man or a woman, in this context it makes absolutely no difference and we don't know if it's a man or a woman), should I use "his" or "her"?

My instinct would tell me to use his but I seem to remember encountering her in such a neutral situation before.

EDIT:

Here is the exact sentence (it's from a IT Security paper I'm writing):

Finally the paper will demonstrate how the attacker may control the
contents of the web pages delivered to the victim as well as redirect
his downloads towards malicious files.

As you can see I used his here, is that correct?

Answer

There really is no correct answer to this question, and not even a good consensus convention.

Here are some options, such as they are:

1. Generic he
   Doing this, however, in English -- a language without gendered nouns -- can prove inaccurate and may strike some readers as sexist. You could also do a generic she but this will definitely read as reactionary and may distract readers unintentionally.




2. Singular they
   This is probably the most common in non-formal writing and in speech. But many consider the mere idea of treating a plural pronoun as singular to be offensive to proper usage.




3. s/he or he or she
   
   You can always choose not to choose! This however can read as needlessly verbose and call attention to itself.




4. Alternate
   Many people opt to use male and female pronouns in alternate. This has the same issue as 1, but avoids the preferential treatment of the male gendered term. For longer texts (essays, books) this strikes me as the best approach.




5. Avoid the pronoun
   This can be awkward, but in some cases you can be slightly less economical and avoid the pronoun altogether. In your example sentence, you might write: "Someone could attack a victim and take that person's coat."

Again, no right answers here. Style guides differ and some just throw up their hands and remain neutral on the subject.

pronouns - Is using "he" for a gender-neutral third-person correct?

I know there are different opinions on this issue. My question: Is using "he" for a general, gender-neutral third person still in common use for formal writing? By common use I mean, can I expect my paper not to be penalised because I use "he" as pronoun for "a student", etc.?

I think "he/she" is too clumsy and I am not comfortable with singular they.

Confusion in "-ing" form verbs use

I am a reading Jane Eyre book published by Oxford Bookworms.

I have found this sentence:

[...], while I lay awake all night, trembling with fear, and eyes wide open in horror, imagining ghosts in every corner.

I do not know when to use "-ing" like trembling and imagining. There is no be verb before them and I cannot distinguish any relative clauses (I know be verbs can be omitted in some cases when there is relative clause.).

Would you please guide me a bit in this case?

Thank you in advance

meaning - How to use the comparison--"Not like...but then" and what does "be less than peas in a pod" mean?

Tommen was a sweet boy. Not like his brother (Joffery), but then Jaime
and Tyrion were some what less than peas in a pod themselves.

This sentence is extracted from the Game of Thrones. I don't understand how to use the comparison "Not like... but then...". Could you please teach me?

Does "be less than peas in a pod themselves" mean "be different from each other"?

Answer

The two comparisons are for two different brothers and you have to look at one by one.

Tommen was a sweet boy. Not like his brother (Joffery),

Tommen was a sweet boy, but his brother (Joffery) was not a sweet boy (comparison of their characters only).

but then Jaime and Tyrion were some what less than peas in a pod
themselves.

You will see what "peas in a pod" means by looking at the below picture. As you noticed in the show, Tyron is a dwarf and his character is completely different from that of his brother. The above sentence means:

They don't look like brothers who were given birth to by the "same"

mother as they look different and don't talk and behave in the same way (comparison of their appearances and characters).

"are created equal" - helping verb or linking verb?

In the following clause,

that all men are created equal,

is "are" serving as a linking verb (in which case you could say "the created (to be) equal men") or as a helping verb for main verb created (in which case one could ask...I think, not completely sure about this, sounds kind of weird... "how did the men create?" and you could reply "to be equal")?

Or better yet, is there any correct answer?

[I tried to start thinking about this... one question I had was, is it possible for men to "create" (in the sense that "create" == "spawn", or something like that)? Or does create mean something else in this case? Or am I missing something blindingly obvious?]

questions - can we point o an animal and "what animal is this ? or which animal is this? which one is correct?

I just wanted to know if its gramatically correct to say what animal is this? or which animal I this?

grammar - Parsing the sentence "the number of people..."

Here's a sentence I randomly thought of:

The number of people [who/that] don't give way to buses is staggering.

This sentence got me thinking about grammar and sentence structure and thus prompted this question. There are two parts to my question, which somewhat go together.

The first part is this: is "who" or "that" correct? I was fairly sure of "who", but then I thought, maybe it depends on how the first part of the sentence is parsed. Again, I'm fairly sure that #1 is correct; if it is, I'd also like to know whether #2 is plausible.

1. (The number of) people who...

In #1, people are the focus, so "who" is used.

2. The number (of people) that...

In #2, the number is the focus, so "that" is used (because the number is a concept).

This leads me to the second part of the question. What is the structure of the sentence? Below is what I think it is:

[The number of people] subject who [don't] verb [give way to] verb [buses] object [is staggering] phrase

(Is this also a clause on its own? Or is it a clause + a phrase?)

Now, if my breakdown of the sentence is correct, and the number of people is a compound subject, does that mean that (1) the first part of this question is moot, and (2) The number of people that doesn't is correct, despite linguistic norms?

In summary:

• Is "who" or "that" correct? Why?


• Have I analysed the sentence correctly?


• Is the number of people a compound subject? If so, why don't we say the number of people that doesn't?


• Is the entire sentence a clause, a clause + a phrase, or multiple clauses?