4 ms·

Serious question: may I ask why, in describing a plurality of good managers, you chose to use a lot of singular feminine pronouns and no plural gender-neutral p

by coolso 9y ago

Serious question: may I ask why, in describing a plurality of good managers, you chose to use a lot of singular feminine pronouns and no plural gender-neutral pronouns; while in describing a singular (one) bad manager, you avoided the use of a pronoun altogether in one sentence; used one plural general-neutral pronoun in another; and then switched from using the pronoun you previously extensively used when describing good things (singular feminine pronouns), to instead using the singular masculine pronoun? I was just curious if there was a story behind that or something.

Brajeshwar 9y ago
Wow! I had to read this few times, aloud. I'd love to write like this. This is cool. Anyway, made slight normalization to the plural/singular gender usage. Yes. I'm usually called in when things escalate either with a team or with a client. So, one late evening (early morning for the client's timezone), I joined a client call with the team leads, including the project manager (hired about a month or so ago). The project managers keep eluding anything that goes to him, was evasive, keep blaming the team. I decided to cushion the blame, apologize to the client from the team and promised to be in direct call with him until the problems are solved. Luckily, I was able to rally the team, beg/borrow other guys from other team and turn around in few weeks. I confronted the manager (after talking to everyone in the project), asked him what he wants from the team, from his life, how does he really want to execute his role. Didn't go well. I think, I might have gotten him fired. In my defence, that was a good decision for the team and the company.
unethical_ban 9y ago
Serious question: Why does it matter? The masculine singular has been used through most history and in modern times it is as acceptable to use the feminine singular as a "general case" pronoun. His specific example was obviously about an actual, specific man.
- prepend 9y ago
  I think it matters as much a clear writing and proper grammar matters. I don’t think it matters from a content perspective, but is a bit more confusing so I had to spend a few seconds thinking about it. I had a similar thought as OP as to whether this was significant. But it wasn’t a big enough deal for me to comment as I figured it out, reach much the same conclusion as you did.
tachyoff 9y ago
If you pick at this any more it’s going to get infected.

by coolso 9y ago

Brajeshwar 9y ago

Wow! I had to read this few times, aloud. I'd love to write like this. This is cool. Anyway, made slight normalization to the plural/singular gender usage. Yes. I'm usually called in when things escalate either with a team or with a client. So, one late evening (early morning for the client's timezone), I joined a client call with the team leads, including the project manager (hired about a month or so ago). The project managers keep eluding anything that goes to him, was evasive, keep blaming the team. I decided to cushion the blame, apologize to the client from the team and promised to be in direct call with him until the problems are solved. Luckily, I was able to rally the team, beg/borrow other guys from other team and turn around in few weeks. I confronted the manager (after talking to everyone in the project), asked him what he wants from the team, from his life, how does he really want to execute his role. Didn't go well. I think, I might have gotten him fired. In my defence, that was a good decision for the team and the company.

unethical_ban 9y ago

Serious question: Why does it matter? The masculine singular has been used through most history and in modern times it is as acceptable to use the feminine singular as a "general case" pronoun. His specific example was obviously about an actual, specific man.

prepend 9y ago
I think it matters as much a clear writing and proper grammar matters. I don’t think it matters from a content perspective, but is a bit more confusing so I had to spend a few seconds thinking about it. I had a similar thought as OP as to whether this was significant. But it wasn’t a big enough deal for me to comment as I figured it out, reach much the same conclusion as you did.

tachyoff 9y ago

If you pick at this any more it’s going to get infected.