3 ms·

Why assume #1 engineer is a he?

• hyperdimension 8y ago
  Can we just charitably assume that s/he knows that English lacks a gender-neutral second-person pronoun and picked one out of he or she (like those baby books that alternate between gendered pronouns) to finish what s/he said so s/he didn't have to use the thought-interrupting construct "s/he"?
• tomhoward 8y ago
  It'd sure be great if people didn't make that assumption, but the HN guidelines ask you to make the strongest-possible interpretations of comments when responding, as doing otherwise leads to unnecessary, off-topic flamewars. Other commenters use different pronouns when describing hypothetical scenarios, and that's great, but it also sometimes triggers flamewars from a different direction. Best to just avoid playing that game altogether.