5 ms·

His? Could be hers..

• spraak 10y ago
  I wonder why I would be downvoted for pointing this out? The gender is assumed here, when we don't know. Why is this wrong to point out? I don't see anywhere in a Hacker News profile where one can indicate one's gender, so we can't assume what it would be.
  • dvfjsdhgfv 10y ago
    Well, because of recent cultural changes you have several options here, but none are elegant/natural. You can put "he or she" everywhere, or use "they" instead, even though you mean a single person. Many modern writers explicitly use "her" consistently whenever a gender-neutral singular pronoun is needed. I upvoted you, but I perfectly understand why others would react differently - in today's world you can hardly do anything without touching politics, and we're just fed up with that.
    • spraak 10y ago
      > in today's world you can hardly do anything without touching politics, and we're just fed up with that. This makes sense, and I appreciate your reply. I don't think however that it's anything new (or specific to this time period), and even being born means you will constantly be challenged to learn new things, or stay stuck. Also I am not sure about the 'political' sense of this.. I mean, people of different gender identities and beliefs have formed political groups, but I don't think it's a direct connexion. (I do prefer 'they')
    • jjnoakes 10y ago
      > or use "they" instead, even though you mean a single person Using 'they' to mean a single person is valid though. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/they https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/they
• lgas 10y ago
  aduffy is Andrew Duffy, who at least on twitter, presents as male. Sometimes people do know other people's gender.