3 ms·

I'm indifferent towards the use of neutral pronouns, however, the article does not answer the question stated in the title.

by emsy 8y ago

beaconstudios 8y ago
ignoring the political aspects, I'd suggest an answer of "because it's the closest thing to accurate that we have". Using "them" when you don't know the gender of the subject has precedent, and makes more sense than using "him" if for no other reason than it's clearer that the person's gender is unknown. It does swap in the ambiguity of whether you're talking about one or many people, but that's usually clear from the context of the surrounding sentence.
alangpierce 8y ago
Funny, I read through the article and didn't even notice that it barely addresses "Why It Is Important". I wonder if the author took it for granted and overlooked the real justification part. I did find it a useful little article for people who are already on-board with the idea, though, especially the discussion of "themself", which I've been uneasy with. My take: There's no good reason for English to require you to specify gender in certain grammatical forms, and there are plenty of real-world situations where it is either awkward or nonsensical. Sometimes it's a hypothetical person who obviously doesn't have a gender, sometimes it's one of a group of people of mixed gender, sometimes you can't visually tell the gender of the person (and obviously you can never visually tell what pronoun they prefer), sometimes all you have is the person's name, which often isn't enough to know gender. For most people and in most situations, it's usually not a big deal (though it's a little extra unnecessary overhead and chance for awkwardness), but for some people, it's repeatedly disheartening when others misgender them. A singular pronoun for "that person" is a completely valid concept, and more than deserving of a word in English, and I think English would be a better language if that was the default way to refer to people.

I'm indifferent towards the use of neutral pronouns, however, the article does not answer the question stated in the title.

by emsy 8y ago

I'm indifferent towards the use of neutral pronouns, however, the article does not answer the question stated in the title.

beaconstudios 8y ago

ignoring the political aspects, I'd suggest an answer of "because it's the closest thing to accurate that we have". Using "them" when you don't know the gender of the subject has precedent, and makes more sense than using "him" if for no other reason than it's clearer that the person's gender is unknown. It does swap in the ambiguity of whether you're talking about one or many people, but that's usually clear from the context of the surrounding sentence.

alangpierce 8y ago

Funny, I read through the article and didn't even notice that it barely addresses "Why It Is Important". I wonder if the author took it for granted and overlooked the real justification part. I did find it a useful little article for people who are already on-board with the idea, though, especially the discussion of "themself", which I've been uneasy with. My take: There's no good reason for English to require you to specify gender in certain grammatical forms, and there are plenty of real-world situations where it is either awkward or nonsensical. Sometimes it's a hypothetical person who obviously doesn't have a gender, sometimes it's one of a group of people of mixed gender, sometimes you can't visually tell the gender of the person (and obviously you can never visually tell what pronoun they prefer), sometimes all you have is the person's name, which often isn't enough to know gender. For most people and in most situations, it's usually not a big deal (though it's a little extra unnecessary overhead and chance for awkwardness), but for some people, it's repeatedly disheartening when others misgender them. A singular pronoun for "that person" is a completely valid concept, and more than deserving of a word in English, and I think English would be a better language if that was the default way to refer to people.