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Thought immediately about posting a rant on the obsessive use of "they/their" in a singular context. Pick a pronoun for Kara and use it. Whether he is a she or

Thought immediately about posting a rant on the obsessive use of "they/their" in a singular context. Pick a pronoun for Kara and use it. Whether he is a she or she is a he, Kara is not a "they" But then I thought, nah. I'll just read something else.

BSVino 9y ago
Hello, author of the article here. Kara is a "they". Many people use "they/their" as their singular pronoun. My coworker was one such person. :)
timtas 9y ago
"Their resentment may even cause them to push for keeping the icon after it has proven not to be the right thing for your product." Either Kara is more than one person, or this is a grammatical error. It may be an intentional grammatical error but an error nonetheless.
zerocrates 9y ago
That's a pretty petty reason. Also, you're only going to see usage of the singular "they" increase, so you'll be skipping a fair amount of content with that policy. Especially in the workplace context, assignment of a particular gender for an example like this is often an issue. Many people (myself included) take the reasonable opinion that "they" is preferable to "he or she," if only on aesthetic grounds.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Singular “they” is a different issue than singular l specific “they”, which is what is used in the article; singular ”they” is a very long established usage, but “they” for a specific named person (even if a hypothetical one) is about as well accepted as “it” for that use. > Many people (myself included) take the reasonable opinion that "they" is preferable to "he or she," if only on aesthetic grounds. “he or she" and similar constructs are also not generally accepted for specific named individuals.
  - zerocrates 9y ago
    For a _hypothetical_ person? I don't buy the distinction (ignoring the small aside where the author says Kara was "a real person). I sincerely doubt that the poster I replied to would be fine with the article if all instances of "Kara" were simply replaced by "[your/my/a] coworker."

BSVino 9y ago

Hello, author of the article here. Kara is a "they". Many people use "they/their" as their singular pronoun. My coworker was one such person. :)

timtas 9y ago

"Their resentment may even cause them to push for keeping the icon after it has proven not to be the right thing for your product." Either Kara is more than one person, or this is a grammatical error. It may be an intentional grammatical error but an error nonetheless.

zerocrates 9y ago

That's a pretty petty reason. Also, you're only going to see usage of the singular "they" increase, so you'll be skipping a fair amount of content with that policy. Especially in the workplace context, assignment of a particular gender for an example like this is often an issue. Many people (myself included) take the reasonable opinion that "they" is preferable to "he or she," if only on aesthetic grounds.

dragonwriter 9y ago
Singular “they” is a different issue than singular l specific “they”, which is what is used in the article; singular ”they” is a very long established usage, but “they” for a specific named person (even if a hypothetical one) is about as well accepted as “it” for that use. > Many people (myself included) take the reasonable opinion that "they" is preferable to "he or she," if only on aesthetic grounds. “he or she" and similar constructs are also not generally accepted for specific named individuals.
- zerocrates 9y ago
  For a _hypothetical_ person? I don't buy the distinction (ignoring the small aside where the author says Kara was "a real person). I sincerely doubt that the poster I replied to would be fine with the article if all instances of "Kara" were simply replaced by "[your/my/a] coworker."