6 ms·

I wish we just used “they” always. I am fine with people not wanting certain pronouns but I find it very tedious to track different pronouns in my head. Especia

I wish we just used “they” always. I am fine with people not wanting certain pronouns but I find it very tedious to track different pronouns in my head. Especially in a professional setting gender shouldn’t matter at all.

eli 4y ago
I wish everyone was just named James. I had a good friend named James and it’s much easier to call everyone that than to learn a bunch of individual names.
- recursive 4y ago
  It makes sense to me that individuals should have names. Pronouns tend to be much less information dense, and are used as shorthand. It doesn't make sense to me that pronouns should capture gender, as opposed to hair color, height, or age.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    If we could simply convince the entire world to speak either Persian or Bengali, we could avoid the whole problem.
  - munificent 4y ago
    The property that pronouns capture is essentially arbitrary. That's why Romance languages assign gender to stuff like telephones and sandwiches. The point of gendered pronouns is that sentences very often have two nouns: a subject and object. If you have only a single pronoun, then any sentence can only use a pronoun to unambiguously refer to one of those. If you have two pronouns and you randomly and evenly distribute them across various subjects, then it's fairly likely that the subject and object will get difference ones and you can now unambiguously use pronouns for both. Since a very large fraction of human speech pertains to other humans and since human sex is a roughly 50/50 distribution, it makes some sense that we used gender as our mostly arbitrary thing to assign a pair of pronouns too. We could have used, say handedness instead, but with only ~10% of people being left-handed, the odds of a sentence being about a righty and a lefty is much smaller. Pronouns are basically like special variables in a REPL that let you refer to the most recent expression. It's nice if you can refer back to a couple of them.
    - jimmywetnips 4y ago
      Why even use articles or pronouns, a better way would be to unambiguously mark every word with whether they're the object subject or whatever role it is in the sentence. Maybe tack on more flags as you need them for more information as needed Hence why forcing my team to learn Hungarian has really been a no brainer and will really start to pay dividends in the next decade when we finally reach a working professional proficiency
      - munificent 4y ago
        > mark every word with whether they're the object subject or whatever role it is in the sentence No, that's not the point. (Most languages do make subject/object fairly clear.) The point of pronouns is to have a short alias to refer to a previously introduced noun.
  - burnished 4y ago
    Well, it certainly is a much stronger disambiguater than those other signals. Dividing a population in half is a pretty powerful technique. Though now that I think about it age is also potent - you get the same rough division w.r.t relative age (younger vs older than the speaker), and you can divide the population roughly into quarters with ease and accuracy. Do miss and ma'am count as pronouns here? They code for age as well as gender Hair color and height dont really have the same sort of dividing power broadly speaking. Still, your line of thought there about what a pronoun should capture is intriguing.
- ectopod 4y ago
  The whole point of pronouns is to reduce cognitive overhead. If pronouns become something you have to remember for each person then you might as well drop them from the language and use names all the time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ccn0p 4y ago
    Totally. Or use X for everyone. No overloading of common words well understood to be something completely different.
    - eli 4y ago
      Yes exactly: James for everyone. Some people may prefer a different name but I think they’ll understand once we explain the cognitive load.
      - mkaic 4y ago
        James thinks James meant "James'll understand" instead of "they'll understand" :P
- javajosh 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - dangerlibrary 4y ago
    I don't disagree with you in principle, but this take ignores the boots-on-the-ground reality for trans and nonbinary people. Trans and nonbinary people are using this as a shibboleth to determine whether they can feel safe around you. You are not someone who wishes nonbinary or trans people harm, but unfortunately, there is a large segment of the population that does. The act of using someone's preferred pronouns is an act of saying "you are safe with me, I do not wish you harm." This is not a default or automatic assumption they can make, as it likely is for you. Many trans and nonbinary people, through no fault of their own, have PTSD from how they've been treated by others. Even those that have not experienced hatred or violence directly are no doubt aware of the statistics.[0] You're correct that, in many cases, this is a mental health problem. It's an accommodation for a colleague or friend that needs your help, for now. I have trans relatives and colleagues, and several I knew before they came out / transitioned. They've been understanding and patient when I have made mistakes, just as any normal person would be. It's not about hating people - in either direction. It's about treating people with kindness and respect and reminding those who are scared that you are on their side. [0] https://time.com/3999348/transgender-murders-2015/ https://time.com/3999348/transgender-murders-2015/
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Yeah, I have trans friends and former colleagues, and can confirm all of this. I'd love to live in a world where it wasn't controversial or dangerous, but we are not in that world yet.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - verall 4y ago
    > I don't respect people's pronoun preferences because that would be creating reasons to hate people This has got to be peak hacker news
_yb2s 4y ago
I have found ways to almost always write and talk with gender neutral pronouns, without sounding too weird. After working with colleagues that use gender neutral pronouns, I find myself being careful not to assume any gender specific pronouns, which means in most cases just not using them.
- King-Aaron 4y ago
  As an Australian, we seemed to develop a culture of calling everyone 'mate' regardless of gender etc. Helps since I can't ever remember a persons name, even after they've said it directly to my face. I've got no issue with people wanting to use different pronouns, though usually I try to keep it neutral in conversation anyway. "They/their" is extremely easy to use without much thought.
  - naruhodo 4y ago
    Actually, also as an Australian: Australia is a country where you call your mates "cunt" and call cunts "mate".
    - danuker 4y ago
      Truly and thoroughly upside-down.
    - fphhotchips 4y ago
      Actually, also as an Australian: I'm pretty sure this is one of those things that's true in the Northern half* of the country that people think applies everywhere, like crocodiles and jellyfish that kill you. I've lived in SA and Vic all my life and all my friends would just be insulted if I called them cunt instead of mate. * "Northern Half" of course meaning above the Barassi Line and probably adding the NT, not the real geographic north.
      - King-Aaron 4y ago
        Depends on the circles of friends really. But yeah that one definitely isn't a country-wide rule if you plan to keep all your teeth
girvo 4y ago
I basically _always_ use "they". Doesn't even feel that awkward with the right sentence structures.
alwayslikethis 4y ago
My pet peeve about using "they" is it seems to imply an undue politeness or superiority. Plurality is an ancient metaphor for power, and many languages today have the same form for a plural "you" and a polite "you". Another example is the royal "we".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jimmywetnips 4y ago
  Did you know you is actually the plural and the singular is thou? My problem with any of this switching around is that since it's used by a very small minority in a very forced way, until it becomes mainstream in the way 'you' has become mainstream, it's confusing af. I've had multiple instances when a they was mentioned in a decision and I had to ask, " wait I thought we only had one designer on this ticket who else got added... Oh you're using singular they.. got it"
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  I would be fine with "it" instead of "they" :-)
- richbell 4y ago
  > My pet peeve about using "they" is it seems to imply an undue politeness or superiority I suppose it could be considered similar to Spanish and French where you have "you" (peers) and then formal "you" (authorities).
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    Same in German. The formal address is in plural. “Sie sind…”
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    We used to have that in English with the formal "you" and informal "thou", but politeness lead to the near-exclusive use of "you" until "thou" became archaic. And now that it's archaic, people think it must have been formal. Funny little circular journey.

eli 4y ago

I wish everyone was just named James. I had a good friend named James and it’s much easier to call everyone that than to learn a bunch of individual names.

recursive 4y ago
It makes sense to me that individuals should have names. Pronouns tend to be much less information dense, and are used as shorthand. It doesn't make sense to me that pronouns should capture gender, as opposed to hair color, height, or age.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  If we could simply convince the entire world to speak either Persian or Bengali, we could avoid the whole problem.
- munificent 4y ago
  The property that pronouns capture is essentially arbitrary. That's why Romance languages assign gender to stuff like telephones and sandwiches. The point of gendered pronouns is that sentences very often have two nouns: a subject and object. If you have only a single pronoun, then any sentence can only use a pronoun to unambiguously refer to one of those. If you have two pronouns and you randomly and evenly distribute them across various subjects, then it's fairly likely that the subject and object will get difference ones and you can now unambiguously use pronouns for both. Since a very large fraction of human speech pertains to other humans and since human sex is a roughly 50/50 distribution, it makes some sense that we used gender as our mostly arbitrary thing to assign a pair of pronouns too. We could have used, say handedness instead, but with only ~10% of people being left-handed, the odds of a sentence being about a righty and a lefty is much smaller. Pronouns are basically like special variables in a REPL that let you refer to the most recent expression. It's nice if you can refer back to a couple of them.
  - jimmywetnips 4y ago
    Why even use articles or pronouns, a better way would be to unambiguously mark every word with whether they're the object subject or whatever role it is in the sentence. Maybe tack on more flags as you need them for more information as needed Hence why forcing my team to learn Hungarian has really been a no brainer and will really start to pay dividends in the next decade when we finally reach a working professional proficiency
    - munificent 4y ago
      > mark every word with whether they're the object subject or whatever role it is in the sentence No, that's not the point. (Most languages do make subject/object fairly clear.) The point of pronouns is to have a short alias to refer to a previously introduced noun.
- burnished 4y ago
  Well, it certainly is a much stronger disambiguater than those other signals. Dividing a population in half is a pretty powerful technique. Though now that I think about it age is also potent - you get the same rough division w.r.t relative age (younger vs older than the speaker), and you can divide the population roughly into quarters with ease and accuracy. Do miss and ma'am count as pronouns here? They code for age as well as gender Hair color and height dont really have the same sort of dividing power broadly speaking. Still, your line of thought there about what a pronoun should capture is intriguing.
ectopod 4y ago
The whole point of pronouns is to reduce cognitive overhead. If pronouns become something you have to remember for each person then you might as well drop them from the language and use names all the time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ccn0p 4y ago
  Totally. Or use X for everyone. No overloading of common words well understood to be something completely different.
  - eli 4y ago
    Yes exactly: James for everyone. Some people may prefer a different name but I think they’ll understand once we explain the cognitive load.
    - mkaic 4y ago
      James thinks James meant "James'll understand" instead of "they'll understand" :P
javajosh 4y ago
[flagged]
- dangerlibrary 4y ago
  I don't disagree with you in principle, but this take ignores the boots-on-the-ground reality for trans and nonbinary people. Trans and nonbinary people are using this as a shibboleth to determine whether they can feel safe around you. You are not someone who wishes nonbinary or trans people harm, but unfortunately, there is a large segment of the population that does. The act of using someone's preferred pronouns is an act of saying "you are safe with me, I do not wish you harm." This is not a default or automatic assumption they can make, as it likely is for you. Many trans and nonbinary people, through no fault of their own, have PTSD from how they've been treated by others. Even those that have not experienced hatred or violence directly are no doubt aware of the statistics.[0] You're correct that, in many cases, this is a mental health problem. It's an accommodation for a colleague or friend that needs your help, for now. I have trans relatives and colleagues, and several I knew before they came out / transitioned. They've been understanding and patient when I have made mistakes, just as any normal person would be. It's not about hating people - in either direction. It's about treating people with kindness and respect and reminding those who are scared that you are on their side. [0] https://time.com/3999348/transgender-murders-2015/ https://time.com/3999348/transgender-murders-2015/
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Yeah, I have trans friends and former colleagues, and can confirm all of this. I'd love to live in a world where it wasn't controversial or dangerous, but we are not in that world yet.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- verall 4y ago
  > I don't respect people's pronoun preferences because that would be creating reasons to hate people This has got to be peak hacker news

_yb2s 4y ago

I have found ways to almost always write and talk with gender neutral pronouns, without sounding too weird. After working with colleagues that use gender neutral pronouns, I find myself being careful not to assume any gender specific pronouns, which means in most cases just not using them.

King-Aaron 4y ago
As an Australian, we seemed to develop a culture of calling everyone 'mate' regardless of gender etc. Helps since I can't ever remember a persons name, even after they've said it directly to my face. I've got no issue with people wanting to use different pronouns, though usually I try to keep it neutral in conversation anyway. "They/their" is extremely easy to use without much thought.
- naruhodo 4y ago
  Actually, also as an Australian: Australia is a country where you call your mates "cunt" and call cunts "mate".
  - danuker 4y ago
    Truly and thoroughly upside-down.
  - fphhotchips 4y ago
    Actually, also as an Australian: I'm pretty sure this is one of those things that's true in the Northern half* of the country that people think applies everywhere, like crocodiles and jellyfish that kill you. I've lived in SA and Vic all my life and all my friends would just be insulted if I called them cunt instead of mate. * "Northern Half" of course meaning above the Barassi Line and probably adding the NT, not the real geographic north.
    - King-Aaron 4y ago
      Depends on the circles of friends really. But yeah that one definitely isn't a country-wide rule if you plan to keep all your teeth

girvo 4y ago

I basically _always_ use "they". Doesn't even feel that awkward with the right sentence structures.

alwayslikethis 4y ago

My pet peeve about using "they" is it seems to imply an undue politeness or superiority. Plurality is an ancient metaphor for power, and many languages today have the same form for a plural "you" and a polite "you". Another example is the royal "we".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jimmywetnips 4y ago
Did you know you is actually the plural and the singular is thou? My problem with any of this switching around is that since it's used by a very small minority in a very forced way, until it becomes mainstream in the way 'you' has become mainstream, it's confusing af. I've had multiple instances when a they was mentioned in a decision and I had to ask, " wait I thought we only had one designer on this ticket who else got added... Oh you're using singular they.. got it"
rqtwteye 4y ago
I would be fine with "it" instead of "they" :-)
richbell 4y ago
> My pet peeve about using "they" is it seems to imply an undue politeness or superiority I suppose it could be considered similar to Spanish and French where you have "you" (peers) and then formal "you" (authorities).
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  Same in German. The formal address is in plural. “Sie sind…”
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  We used to have that in English with the formal "you" and informal "thou", but politeness lead to the near-exclusive use of "you" until "thou" became archaic. And now that it's archaic, people think it must have been formal. Funny little circular journey.