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Entrepreneur has the best idea ever! He needs funds to build the product. I believe it's best practice these days to use "they" as a neutral pronoun. It seems
by lquist 8y ago
Entrepreneur has the best idea ever! He needs funds to build the product.
I believe it's best practice these days to use "they" as a neutral pronoun. It seems like a small thing, but these little things add up.
- anishgodha 8y agoFair point! Thanks for looking out :)
- dick_sucker2 8y agoI haven't heard of that as a best practice. In my English class in high school they only mentioned to keep it consistent. The preference should be given to the writer. Both men and women have contributed to society so their pronouns can safety be used in written text.
- adjkant 8y agoThe problem is the male default. Grammatically it's fine, but when hundreds of article default to male, it has a growing effect socially. "They" or "he or she" is typically customary these days, more and more so the former as the latter is annoying to write and the singular they is becoming more accepted as a grammatical change in English.
- qaq 8y agowe need a shorthand s/he :)?
- xevb3k 8y agoYour name is dick sucker 2 (I’m hazarding a guess, that your are not Richard Zucker or something similar). I’m not entirely sure your opinion on reasonable social norms holds much weight...
- dick_sucker2 8y agoMany a man and woman has sucked a dick. It won't be in the history books, but I'm sure you can find some reference material.
- repsilat 8y agoI don't think English is the author's first language -- see the use of "defer" throughout the document. Maybe most polite not to nitpick.
- adjkant 8y agoI don't think it's meant as a nitpick but more of a "hey, you may not know this but here's a helpful thing". The comment seems to have been both worded and received in that positive way and that's a great thing if you ask me :)
- richardknop 8y agoOr use he or she instead. But yeah, they or he or she is most neutral.
- Pls_I_Need_Help 8y agoTypical HackerNews quibble to set the tone adrift. The context of the article is not as necessary as the punctuation and pronouns. ...Lets twaddle away...