Sam, you are oversimplifying.

Karen, I'm from Texas. But you just excellently described what I was getting at in my previous post. Thanks for that. :)

Yes, that's right. "Much" takes the singular verb. Compare this with "many," that takes the plural verb.

"Much has been written about the controversy between religion and science." (Much writing)

"Many have written about the controversy between religion and science." (Many writers)

While I'm off the subject...

It's apparently NOT inappropriate to refer to a person's "gender" if you are referring to what is called their "gender identity," as opposed to their biologically determined sex. Someone born a man (for example) who would rather identify as a woman is called "transgendered," but he wouldn't be considered a 'transsexual" until after the operation.

Talk about pronoun confusion. One of my ex-boyfriends is now a woman (no, really, this is true). I have to stop and think which pronoun to use, following a somewhat arbitrary rule that when he was a man, I use the male-gendered pronoun, but now that she is a woman, I use the female-gendered pronoun. This results in such monstrosities as, "I was talking to my ex-boyfriend the other day, and she told me about her home business."

Dyske said: "I wish that the government would step in and officially endorse (not enforce) a rule."

Gives new meaning to the term "grammar police." LOL

With all due respect... if the government involvement in the English language is as effective as most other government programs are, we'll be speaking in grunts in forty years, and paying higher taxes to compensate the telephone company for loss of business.

It probably goes without saying that if an individual's sex is known, then there is no further question about what pronoun is most appropriate.

Slightly off subject: A teacher I had in college used to insist that we used "sex" and "gender" properly. They do not mean the same thing. As he put it, "Things that 'have sex' have 'sex.' Everything else has 'gender.'" Be aware that it is incorrect (though common) to refer to a person's "gender."

I haven't ever had a problem avoiding the use of "he" and "she." Sentences, whenever appropriate, can always be recast. The sentences are usually improved as a result.

Examples:

1) "Everyone in the Engineering department has renewed his or her IEEE membership." Recast: "All IEEE members in the Engineering department have renewed their memberships."

2) "When you find out who has the highest grade in the class, give him or her this award." Recast: "Give this award to the student with the highest grade."

The use of the plural "they" is currently the "best-practices," most accepted, alternative.

Example:

3) "Someone has left their umbrella on their seat. They had better come pick it up before it gets stolen."

More information here on why the usage of "they" and "their" is perfectly acceptable (and has been for a long time): http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html#X1a

"There must be a measure."

There is; the measure is whether your new word actually communicates what it is meant to communicate.

The creative name of your photo, "Irreddenable Blue," is immediately clear. A word like "oddityness" is... well one thing that strikes me as wrong about it is that the hearer first hears a word that he knows ("oddity") and then, unexpectedly, the orphaned suffix. It's a stumbling block where "irreddenable" is not.

Oh, God, Derrida. That man is completely incomprehensible in French, let alone in English translation. Besides that, he is utterly unreliable when it comes to mathematical terminology, which he misunderstands in any language.

Boy, I am doing badly on this, aren't I.

"Beheaded" is another word that is a survival from the time when "be-" was commonly used as a prefix. We don't make words in this way anymore, but we still use the ones that exist.

Facetious? OK... well... last week my partner's little niece got into the cupboard somehow and pulled a box of cocoa over herself, then tried to lick most of it off. (True story.) When her mother found her, she was pretty well "bechocolated."