5 ms·
I do think this topic is something it doesn't hurt to be mindful of. However, it's pretty clear to me that the author's first language is not English. One of my
by cyphar 6y ago
I do think this topic is something it doesn't hurt to be mindful of. However, it's pretty clear to me that the author's first language is not English. One of my mother tongues has gendered pronouns, and I find one of the simplest tells that a speaker's native tongue isn't English is the inappropriate usage of gendered pronouns. In fact I don't recall a single time I've heard a native English speaker use gendered pronouns in this manner (not to mention a company is a collection of people -- so there isn't even a singular "they" discussion to be had here).
So my main issue with this discussion topic is not that we shouldn't use more inclusive pronouns generally, it's these discussions seem to always ignore that folks whose mother tongue has gendered pronouns automatically think about objects differently when talking about them. For instance, a table being masculine (at least in my mother tongue) is not a conscious judgement of tables on the speaker's part -- it's a kind of classification that your brain does on autopilot. It should just be seen as the garden variety grammatical slip-up that it is, and treat it as such (ignore it and move on).