>>>Q2) Is it true that in an attempt to enforce "equality" the words him and her have been combined into a new word "hem" ?
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>>Years ago I proposed (in casual amongst family, friends, anyone who would listen whenever the issue came up) that the word "heir" be extended to have that meaning (to be used in a case meaning his / her / their). It already has that type of connotation, meaning an heir can be a him, a her (or even a them). :-)
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>>I often see things like this in documentation:
>>When the user clicks the login button, s/he will find the main screen appears.
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>I thought, and I even used, that they was used in cases where you want gender neutral statements "When the user clicks the login button, they will find the main screen appears"

No, that's actually ungrammatical, though it's widely used. "He or she" is correct, though in your sense, you can avoid the problem entirely and make the sentence better <g>: "When the user clicks the login button, the main screen appears"

General rule of strong writing is remove as much as you can, but no more.

Tamar