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Some people refer to hypothetical people in stories as the same sex as the person describing the story. I'm not positive, but I imagine the parent is also a "he
by dgzl 7y ago
Some people refer to hypothetical people in stories as the same sex as the person describing the story. I'm not positive, but I imagine the parent is also a "he". I don't consider this important at all, and I think you're being pedantic.
- tom_mellior 7y agoI guess I agree it's a form of pedantry, but once you're a bit used to reading singular "they" (and it's hard to escape nowadays) you get used to it, and the opposite starts looking weird. Also, it's pedantry that seems to actually be socially beneficial: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/05/he-she-or-gender-neutral-pronouns-reduce-biases-study https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/05/he-she-or-ge... (I don't agree with everything being done for "gender-neutral language", especially in German. But this particular case is simple and useful enough in English.) For whatever it's worth, the reason this tripped me up here was that I had to read the original post several times because I thought that "he" was referring to the attacker (as in the featured article), not to the target. Re-reading it now I don't quite see why I was thinking that.
- dgzl 7y agoI use non-specific terms like "they" as often as I can, largely because I don't want my audience to be tripped up with superficial distractions. I don't read into other people's wordings with contempt unless I know for certain they're being malicious. I think the saying goes something like... Don't attribute malice where ignorance would suffice...