4 ms·

As I'm not aware of what pronouns they personally prefer, I fall back to using the singular, gender-neutral, "they/them/their". It's a fairly new usage in collo

As I'm not aware of what pronouns they personally prefer, I fall back to using the singular, gender-neutral, "they/them/their". It's a fairly new usage in colloquial English but I find it to be common enough so as to not impair understanding.

bsaul 7y ago
completely off topic, but is this where we’re at now ? Calling someone « they » and thus create confusion, just in case he doesn’t belong to the 99.9% of the population who is just fine with his DNA, and eventhough he never expressed any kind of opinion leading you to think he isn’t fine with his gender ?
- foldr 7y ago
  Singular 'they' is pretty well established usage by now, regardless of gender considerations. Even people who complain about it still use it: https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-singular-they/ https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/everything-yo...
  - zellyn 7y ago
    That is a great treatment. Thanks for the link.
- vidarh 7y ago
  There is no implication that "he isn't fine with his gender". The implication is that the speaker doesn't know, and it doesn't matter enough to find out or make a judgement call. Personally I still use he/she most of the time unless I have a reason not to, but I also try to get into the habit of assuming less, not least because online in particular it is increasingly noticeable how often we assume someone's gender even in situations we have no reason to. It's not unsurprising that some choose to carry that over into discussing people they don't know the preference of when it doesn't otherwise matter. One reason to do so may be to explicitly normalise the usage so it doesn't imply a value judgement e.g based on appearance.
  - rusk 7y ago
    While I'm sympathetic to this point of view, it seems pretty clear to me that Woz self-identifies as male. He has quite a visible profile and has never presented as anything other than masculine (with the exception maybe of the odd flourish on dancing with the stars), so to select such a pronoun in this case I believe is disregarding how he would wish to be identified.
    - foldr 7y ago
      Using a gender neutral pronoun isn't disregarding a person's gender identity, any more than referring to them as a "person" is.
      - rusk 7y ago
        I actually really don’t mind that much, I believe we can use language in whatever way suits us to express our thoughts and beliefs. Gp wasnt being prescriptive upon other people and I respect that. I am all for addressing people by their favoured pronoun.
  - bsaul 7y ago
    « One reason to do so may be to explicitly normalise the usage so it doesn't imply a value judgement » That’s some scary sentence here. so gender is now a « judgment ». Like, there’s no reason to assume because steve wozniak has all the physical characteristics of a male, and has always been called « mister », using « he » (which is the grammatically correct way of designing a male human in the english language by default) is the expression of a value judgement... Seeing this kind of mental twist in a scientific forum (which believes there is something called nature, with laws and hard facts) makes me really scared.
    - foldr 7y ago
      It looks as though you're just looking for an excuse to go on a pre-packaged rant about gender and sex. I find it scary that an innocuous use of singular "they" (which has been in use as long as English as existed) would provoke such a thing.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
They can be plural as well which is why its a bit jarring
- rusk 7y ago
  So can "you", and speaking English as a first language all my life I still find it jarring. It's a constant irritation that colloqs such as ye, or yous are considered vulgar.
qwkudhq 7y ago
This is ideological idiocy. Please get lost.
xnaj 7y ago
"They" sounds like a person has multiple personality disorder, so Woz might be offended by the usage. Actually Stallman has arrived at this conclusion independently (see the bottom of this link): https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html
derangedHorse 7y ago
It is definitely not common when talking about a specific person
specialist 7y ago
As a sci-fi buff, I expected the new gender neutral pronouns to be something like zey, zem, zir, or whatever. Reusing "they" is unfortunate. And bad grammar.

bsaul 7y ago

completely off topic, but is this where we’re at now ? Calling someone « they » and thus create confusion, just in case he doesn’t belong to the 99.9% of the population who is just fine with his DNA, and eventhough he never expressed any kind of opinion leading you to think he isn’t fine with his gender ?

foldr 7y ago
Singular 'they' is pretty well established usage by now, regardless of gender considerations. Even people who complain about it still use it: https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-singular-they/ https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/everything-yo...
- zellyn 7y ago
  That is a great treatment. Thanks for the link.
vidarh 7y ago
There is no implication that "he isn't fine with his gender". The implication is that the speaker doesn't know, and it doesn't matter enough to find out or make a judgement call. Personally I still use he/she most of the time unless I have a reason not to, but I also try to get into the habit of assuming less, not least because online in particular it is increasingly noticeable how often we assume someone's gender even in situations we have no reason to. It's not unsurprising that some choose to carry that over into discussing people they don't know the preference of when it doesn't otherwise matter. One reason to do so may be to explicitly normalise the usage so it doesn't imply a value judgement e.g based on appearance.
- rusk 7y ago
  While I'm sympathetic to this point of view, it seems pretty clear to me that Woz self-identifies as male. He has quite a visible profile and has never presented as anything other than masculine (with the exception maybe of the odd flourish on dancing with the stars), so to select such a pronoun in this case I believe is disregarding how he would wish to be identified.
  - foldr 7y ago
    Using a gender neutral pronoun isn't disregarding a person's gender identity, any more than referring to them as a "person" is.
    - rusk 7y ago
      I actually really don’t mind that much, I believe we can use language in whatever way suits us to express our thoughts and beliefs. Gp wasnt being prescriptive upon other people and I respect that. I am all for addressing people by their favoured pronoun.
- bsaul 7y ago
  « One reason to do so may be to explicitly normalise the usage so it doesn't imply a value judgement » That’s some scary sentence here. so gender is now a « judgment ». Like, there’s no reason to assume because steve wozniak has all the physical characteristics of a male, and has always been called « mister », using « he » (which is the grammatically correct way of designing a male human in the english language by default) is the expression of a value judgement... Seeing this kind of mental twist in a scientific forum (which believes there is something called nature, with laws and hard facts) makes me really scared.
  - foldr 7y ago
    It looks as though you're just looking for an excuse to go on a pre-packaged rant about gender and sex. I find it scary that an innocuous use of singular "they" (which has been in use as long as English as existed) would provoke such a thing.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

They can be plural as well which is why its a bit jarring

rusk 7y ago
So can "you", and speaking English as a first language all my life I still find it jarring. It's a constant irritation that colloqs such as ye, or yous are considered vulgar.

qwkudhq 7y ago

This is ideological idiocy. Please get lost.

xnaj 7y ago

"They" sounds like a person has multiple personality disorder, so Woz might be offended by the usage. Actually Stallman has arrived at this conclusion independently (see the bottom of this link): https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html

derangedHorse 7y ago

It is definitely not common when talking about a specific person

specialist 7y ago

As a sci-fi buff, I expected the new gender neutral pronouns to be something like zey, zem, zir, or whatever. Reusing "they" is unfortunate. And bad grammar.