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>the traditional "they" ambiguous and a bit confusing How traditional are you talking about, because the singular they has been in use since the 14th century -
by garblegarble 5y ago
>the traditional "they" ambiguous and a bit confusing
How traditional are you talking about, because the singular they has been in use since the 14th century - according to wikipedia that's only 100 years after "they" as plural
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
- bloak 5y agoThe Wikipedia article seems to cover this quite well, but I'll say it here anyway: there are several kinds of singular "they". Using "they" to refer to a word like "someone" or "anyone", as in "If everyone minded their own business", is totally normal and has been for a very long time. Using "they" to refer to a hypothetical or unknown person described by an ordinary noun, as in "The user must prove their identity", is common enough nowadays but I get the impression that it wasn't so common 50 or 100 years ago. Using "they" to refer to a known person, as in "My cousin lent me their copy", is very modern and likely to confuse some people.
- garblegarble 5y agoAnd worth noting for anyone who didn't read the original pull request, the case here is documentation switching references to an unknown person from "he/her" to "their" (a change which I think actually makes it easier to read).