5 ms·

Unrelated, but why do people prefer to assume gender over just using gender-neutral pronouns? Not a native English speaker but I've seen this a lot, especially

Unrelated, but why do people prefer to assume gender over just using gender-neutral pronouns? Not a native English speaker but I've seen this a lot, especially on HN even when there's no indication of subject's gender whatsoever. Or is it just weird to use they/them? Thanks

imtringued 6y ago
A lot of people simply know that he is male. The nypost article is pretty high up and refers to "him" and "he".
- lollmao 6y ago
  Note that the user I replied to didn't seem to be sure of it.
- maccard 6y ago
  A quarter of that article is an elderly neighbor saying "he definitely was up to something" because "he never let his young son play outside". I wouldn't put too much faith in the article having done the diligence to figure out what Marak's preferred pronoun is.
adwn 6y ago
If I had written "Marak doesn't want to prevent big companies from using their code [...]", the gender-neutral "their" could have refered to the companies' code, giving the sentence a different, incorrect meaning. I would have had to completely restructure the sentence just to avoid the sin of accidentally misgendering someone; instead, I placed a "(?)" after the pronoun, to be on the safe side.
- lollmao 6y ago
  Yes I see now, it does seem to not sit well in many cases. Thanks for clarifying :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jml7c5 6y ago
It's a weird problem with the language. Despite many attempts, with proposals like "xe" and "thon"[0], English never picked up a good gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun. [Yeesh, that's a mouthful of adjectives.] As recently as 15 years ago, using "they" to refer to a single individual was derided by many as grammatically incorrect. It was common in colloquial speech, but frowned upon in writing, mostly because it increased ambiguity. The thinking was that if you accept "they" as a third person singular pronoun, then sentences like the following would become unclear: "Sally and her friends went to the mall, then they left". Of course, this is correct: singular "they" is ambiguous, and often frustrating. But it's what we've ended up with. The recent acceptance comes down to two factors: linguistic descriptivism finally overshadowed linguistic prescriptivism, and non-binary gender identity (and concern about accidental misgendering) became more prominent. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#List_of_standard_and_non-standard_third-person_singular_pronouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages... (^ Note the "Spivak pronoun". Courtesy of the same Michael Spivak who wrote Calculus on Manifolds.)
- watwut 6y ago
  "Sally and her friends went to the mall, then they left" is ambiguous with or without they being singular. But, if it was normal in colloquial speech, there is no reason to not have it normal in written speech. That would be weird limitation to enforce. I am mostly surprised it was normal in colloquial speech tho. (In this case, we know that Marak is man, so the whole thread is likely just trolling attempt.)
  - jml7c5 6y ago
    You're quite right about my example! I was too focused on other things and wrote a poor one. Fortunately the Canadian Department of Justice has a better example, with a legal focus: >"When an applicant notifies the other residents, they must lodge a section 12 notice within 14 days." ("They" can refer to either the singular "applicant" or the plural "other residents".)
- lowbloodsugar 6y ago
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032276.

imtringued 6y ago

A lot of people simply know that he is male. The nypost article is pretty high up and refers to "him" and "he".

lollmao 6y ago
Note that the user I replied to didn't seem to be sure of it.
maccard 6y ago
A quarter of that article is an elderly neighbor saying "he definitely was up to something" because "he never let his young son play outside". I wouldn't put too much faith in the article having done the diligence to figure out what Marak's preferred pronoun is.

adwn 6y ago

If I had written "Marak doesn't want to prevent big companies from using their code [...]", the gender-neutral "their" could have refered to the companies' code, giving the sentence a different, incorrect meaning. I would have had to completely restructure the sentence just to avoid the sin of accidentally misgendering someone; instead, I placed a "(?)" after the pronoun, to be on the safe side.

lollmao 6y ago
Yes I see now, it does seem to not sit well in many cases. Thanks for clarifying :)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jml7c5 6y ago

It's a weird problem with the language. Despite many attempts, with proposals like "xe" and "thon"[0], English never picked up a good gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun. [Yeesh, that's a mouthful of adjectives.] As recently as 15 years ago, using "they" to refer to a single individual was derided by many as grammatically incorrect. It was common in colloquial speech, but frowned upon in writing, mostly because it increased ambiguity. The thinking was that if you accept "they" as a third person singular pronoun, then sentences like the following would become unclear: "Sally and her friends went to the mall, then they left". Of course, this is correct: singular "they" is ambiguous, and often frustrating. But it's what we've ended up with. The recent acceptance comes down to two factors: linguistic descriptivism finally overshadowed linguistic prescriptivism, and non-binary gender identity (and concern about accidental misgendering) became more prominent. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#List_of_standard_and_non-standard_third-person_singular_pronouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages... (^ Note the "Spivak pronoun". Courtesy of the same Michael Spivak who wrote Calculus on Manifolds.)

watwut 6y ago
"Sally and her friends went to the mall, then they left" is ambiguous with or without they being singular. But, if it was normal in colloquial speech, there is no reason to not have it normal in written speech. That would be weird limitation to enforce. I am mostly surprised it was normal in colloquial speech tho. (In this case, we know that Marak is man, so the whole thread is likely just trolling attempt.)
- jml7c5 6y ago
  You're quite right about my example! I was too focused on other things and wrote a poor one. Fortunately the Canadian Department of Justice has a better example, with a legal focus: >"When an applicant notifies the other residents, they must lodge a section 12 notice within 14 days." ("They" can refer to either the singular "applicant" or the plural "other residents".)
lowbloodsugar 6y ago

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032276.