3 ms·

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 nam

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.

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.