4 ms·

If you don't care just use they. It works no matter how the person identifies themselves, and it's really straightforward.

smcl 4y ago
At least in English you can structure sentences to be pronoun agnostic, as long as you have some way to refer to the users
- unsafecast 4y ago
  I'm not sure why using 'them' is any worse. It's a nice identity-agnostic pronoun. Mixing pronouns with names is much more natural than repeatedly using the name. I don't get why it's an issue at all.
  - dark-star 4y ago
    I guess because "they" and "them" is plural, and it can confuse people to think that you're talking about a group of people instead of a single person? At least that's what confuses me (as non-native speaker) quite often when I read someone talking about "them"
    - ghusbands 4y ago
      Singular "they" predates singular "you" [1]. If someone tells you otherwise, tell them they are wrong. That use of "them" as in the previous sentence has been correct for centuries. [1] https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...
  - smcl 4y ago
    I'm saying that if you don't know a person's pronouns at all and you're not sure if they/them sounds right, you largely can avoid it altogether. And I don't mean by just repeating their name over and over (which I agree sounds weird), so if we take the original comment: > Feel like it would be easier if he rewrote it from scratch and then copied the business logic then using their name is totally pronoun agnostic as discussed: > Feel like it would be easier if foone rewrote it from scratch and then copied the business logic but you can also not use name, pronoun or anything: > Feel like it would be easier to rewrite the app from scratch and then copy the business logic or: > Feel like it would be easier if the app was rewritten from scratch, and then the business logic could be copied English is really flexible, and to be honest I think these look quite natural and don't sound like I'm nervously trying to avoid offending anyone.
    - unsafecast 4y ago
      Fair point. I'll try to do that as much as I can.
archi42 4y ago
Not sure why this is downvoted? Only for the "If you don't care"-part? I usually check if any preferences were stated or what pronoun a person uses when talking about themselves, but use "they/them" as generic fallback as well - and am now irritated if that's wrong and for what reason? (This would probably be a bit much for a HN comment, so feel free to link)
- unsafecast 4y ago
  The "if you don't care part" was meant more as "you're being a dick but I know you'll keep being one anyway, so use this instead to not offend anyone", but the first option works better in a comment. I usually don't like provoking people like that, but I really don't understand the downvotes here.

smcl 4y ago

At least in English you can structure sentences to be pronoun agnostic, as long as you have some way to refer to the users

unsafecast 4y ago
I'm not sure why using 'them' is any worse. It's a nice identity-agnostic pronoun. Mixing pronouns with names is much more natural than repeatedly using the name. I don't get why it's an issue at all.
- dark-star 4y ago
  I guess because "they" and "them" is plural, and it can confuse people to think that you're talking about a group of people instead of a single person? At least that's what confuses me (as non-native speaker) quite often when I read someone talking about "them"
  - ghusbands 4y ago
    Singular "they" predates singular "you" [1]. If someone tells you otherwise, tell them they are wrong. That use of "them" as in the previous sentence has been correct for centuries. [1] https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...
- smcl 4y ago
  I'm saying that if you don't know a person's pronouns at all and you're not sure if they/them sounds right, you largely can avoid it altogether. And I don't mean by just repeating their name over and over (which I agree sounds weird), so if we take the original comment: > Feel like it would be easier if he rewrote it from scratch and then copied the business logic then using their name is totally pronoun agnostic as discussed: > Feel like it would be easier if foone rewrote it from scratch and then copied the business logic but you can also not use name, pronoun or anything: > Feel like it would be easier to rewrite the app from scratch and then copy the business logic or: > Feel like it would be easier if the app was rewritten from scratch, and then the business logic could be copied English is really flexible, and to be honest I think these look quite natural and don't sound like I'm nervously trying to avoid offending anyone.
  - unsafecast 4y ago
    Fair point. I'll try to do that as much as I can.

archi42 4y ago

Not sure why this is downvoted? Only for the "If you don't care"-part? I usually check if any preferences were stated or what pronoun a person uses when talking about themselves, but use "they/them" as generic fallback as well - and am now irritated if that's wrong and for what reason? (This would probably be a bit much for a HN comment, so feel free to link)

unsafecast 4y ago
The "if you don't care part" was meant more as "you're being a dick but I know you'll keep being one anyway, so use this instead to not offend anyone", but the first option works better in a comment. I usually don't like provoking people like that, but I really don't understand the downvotes here.