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In general people use "him" as a replacement for "him/her". Other people use the pronoun "her" to combat the implicit assumption that people must be male. Since
by JupiterMoon 11y ago
In general people use "him" as a replacement for "him/her". Other people use the pronoun "her" to combat the implicit assumption that people must be male. Since they are not identifying the student in this blog post one cannot ascertain the sex of the student from the fact that blog post uses the word "him". My use of the word "her" had nothing to do with any fucking.
- cezary 11y agoLooks like we need a new word to identify male if "him" no longer works.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoWell... in JupiterMoon's defense, the word is overloaded (in the C++ sense). We use "him" for "male", and also (historically) for "person of unspecified/unknown gender". Now, we're more using "her" for "person of unspecified/unknown gender", but the problem remains: We've got three states (male, female, and unknown/unspecified), and only two words (him and her). No matter what, there's going to be this kind of problem, until we come up with a third word. (People have suggested "they" or "them", but I don't like it because of singular/plural issues.)
- _Simon 11y agoBut "them", "their" and "they" are perfectly serviceable and have been used for a long time.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoIf CERN are not identifying the student publicly then we do not know that they are male.
- sbuk 11y agoWell we do, since TFA article refers to the student as male multiple times. You take is your take. It is politically motivated.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoNo we know that they used the word him and his. This does not as we have already established identify the student's sex.
- sbuk 11y agoDon't be ridiculous.
- _Simon 11y agoLike "they", "them" and "their"? English is a wonderfully flexible language, it's such a shame that ridiculous and faddish political correctness is so utterly blind to it.
- sbuk 11y agoLook, you can use all the twists of logic that you like, the facts of the matter are these; the protagonist is male and they were in the wrong.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoHow do you know the student is male? You said that CERN and the University did not name the student?
- sbuk 11y agoBecause unlike you I read the fucking article. In it, the author directly refers to the student as 'him' and 'he'; therefore it is safe to say, despite your politically ridiculous musings, that the protagonist is male.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoNo it is not safe to do so -- as I have already explained in detail. And yes for the uptenth I read the article.
- sbuk 11y agoYou are wrong. End of. Learn when to back down.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoNot really. I think that you are wrong you think that I am wrong. We will never resolve this. Goodbye.
- sbuk 11y agoYou have to have the final word? The story refers to the article, the student, in the masculine form. In English, we do not have explicit masculine/feminine forms of adjectives, therefore the article, in this case a student, is a male as the story's author referred to the article as 'him', 'he' and 'his'. I simply do not understand what you are finding so hard about this, other than petty political correctness. QED. Furthermore, it is totally irrelevant to the story itself! You. Are. Wrong.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago> In general people use "him" as a replacement for "him/her". That's one of the ways people use "him". Other times, they use "him" to mean that the individual in question is male. These days, "her" to combat the implicit assumption that people must be male is common enough, it's almost safer to assume that "him" means someone who is specifically male.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago> These days, "her" to combat the implicit assumption that people must be male is common enough, it's almost safer to assume that "him" means someone who is specifically male. I think this is not true yet. Anecdotally I personally only noticed this first a few months ago and no one I've discussed it with in real life has yet known what I'm talking about.