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52 CHAPTER 4. GRAMMAR WITH STYLE NOTES4.5.7 Extra material: Tricks for gender-neutral languageTrick Incorrect CorrectUse plural The student returned his solution. The students returned their solutionsArticle ”the”The student returned the solution.Drop the pronoun The user himself defines the The user defines the preferences.preferences.Special expressions man, mankind people, human beings, humankindman-machine interfaceuser-system interface,human-computer interfaceResearchers’ wivesResearchers’ spousesmotheringpareting, nurturingchairmanchairperson, chair, headMrs. SmithJane Smithhousewifehomemaker4.6 AdjectivesThese seem to be well mastered, just two notes:1. Avoid vague adjectives!2. How to derive and use comparative and superlative forms?4.6.1 Vague adjecives• Do not use vague adjectives. Especially the adjectives which describeamounts (large, small, huge) are very context-sensitive!• E.g. for statisticians, a data set of 500 rows is quite large, while for adata miner it is extremely small → numbers are more exact!• The expressions become even vaguer, when you add modifiers ”quite”,”rather”, ”very”, etc. Skip them always when possible!4.6.2 Comparative and superlativeBasic rule: use -er/-est for short adjectives, and more/most for longer ones.