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> By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the documentation for a Do It Yours
by anonytrary 8y ago
> By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the documentation for a Do It Yourself Vasectomy Kit, perhaps you get a pass).
Do you have any research/data to back this up? I'm a male and I am not distracted when people use "she" (or "he" for that matter). I have never heard anyone in person complain about not being able to focus on an article because they used "he" instead of "she".
> Anything that might distract your reader is undesirable.
Concision is of utmost importance in any language. Many of the examples in your link sacrifice readability and concision for the purpose of avoiding pronouns. What really distracts me is when people use "(s)he", "s/he", "he or she" (oh no -- which one should be first?), or periodically switch between "he" and "she" absolutely everywhere -- all for the purpose of filling a contrived equality quota.
- GuiA 8y agoThere is a user, they are using the system, and that’s about as much as we know about them.
- anonytrary 8y ago"He" clocks in at two characters, it's a very concise way of referring to an arbitrary person. "The user" takes longer to write and longer to say. Forcing the reader to juggle around "or" conditions (i.e. with "he or she") is even worse and I consider it bad practice. Your readers will thank you for concreteness and brevity.
- GuiA 8y agoYou’ll notice that my previous post uses “they” as shorthand for “the user”. If your last remaining argument is that “he” is 2 letters and “they” is 4 and thus it’s unequivocally better to always use “he”, it’s not a very good one.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoWe need an "it" that can be applied to a person.
- dragonwriter 8y agoEnglish has had one for a long time, “they”. Elitist prescriptivists who wanted English to be Latin because of bizarre linguistic fashion tried to purge it, but never did from general use, and prescriptivism, especially on points that have never aligned with common usage,has fallen out of favor, so there is little reason not to use it now but adherence to a particularly archaic elitism.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoIt’s useful to have a singular and plural form, required probably not.