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I've always used this intentionally in spite of being fully aware that it's "ungrammatical." Saying that singular they is ungrammatical is rather like saying t
by davesque 11y ago
I've always used this intentionally in spite of being fully aware that it's "ungrammatical." Saying that singular they is ungrammatical is rather like saying that irregular verbs are ungrammatical or uncountable nouns are ungrammatical. It doesn't matter because there are already a significant number of irregularities in English and having one more isn't going to cause any problems and, relatively speaking, isn't going to make English any less systematic.
- amsilprotag 11y agoI find myself doing the same, despite increasing preference for "she" by academicians and journalists. See the top post in another HN thread for my criticism, copied below. When "she" becomes the default, I find myself veering off from the topic at hand to consider gender politics and try to infer the author's intention. Does OP see makers as "us" and managers as "them"? Is OP using "she" because /they/ believe managers are disproportionately male and so chooses a pronoun to prevent further exclusion? An ideal grammar solution should not require the author to disclose his politics, either by omission or commission, just to communicate effectively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10658187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10658187 "Manager time" is a small allocation. Since the manager's heap only uses blocks this size, she can do this all day without any problems or fragmentation. "Maker time" is a large contiguous block. If the heap is empty, you can allocate them without any problem. But stick one manager-sized block in the middle and now you've split your heap such that the total time available is large enough, but it's not contiguous. Classic heap fragmentation[2].