5 ms·
I read it this year, too. It's a fun read, but I wouldn't recommend anything past the first group of articles (that is, don't bother with "Five Five Five Five
by tyrust 2y ago
I read it this year, too. It's a fun read, but I wouldn't recommend anything past the first group of articles (that is, don't bother with "Five Five Five Five Five"). The ideas are good, to be sure, but the overall arc past that is pretty weak.
- BalinKing 2y agoYeah, the first half or so is a blast, but there’s a point where I feel it drops off quite a bit. (For me, I think it was when the POV changed to Adam.) Still worth a read, though!
- MollyRealized 2y agoIf you enjoyed that, the short stories are quite good. qntm = Sam Hughes, and some of their work is published under that name.
- dyauspitr 2y agoSam Hughes is a man. Why are you referring to him as their?
- itishappy 2y agoThere's nothing grammatically incorrect or ambiguous about the sentence. What's causing your confusion?
- dyauspitr 2y agoIt’s ideological. It’s using language that intentionally provides less information.
- itishappy 2y agoTheir usage of "their" aligns with how English has been used for centuries (Wikipedia says 14th century), but more importantly the author's writing was the topic of discussion not their gender. Policing other's pronoun usage is ideological, but that's your argument, not theirs.
- cubefox 2y agoObviously, that is: statistically, all involved here (the SCP author, the HN commenters, you, me) are men, so saying "he" is very likely correct. If by chance someone here is nonetheless a woman she will probably speak up.
- MollyRealized 2y ago'Their' is practical not ideological - Sam could be Samuel or Samantha, and I didn't know which. Also, bring up the use of 'their' for unknown gender with Shakespeare and Austen, who both did it. The only one being 'ideological' here is you, getting worked up over basic grammar that's been around longer than Modern English. Go out and touch some grass.
- hellojesus 2y agoI no idea who Sam is, but I believe "their" is typically utilized to describe plurals while "his", "hers", "its" describe the singular. My initial reading led me to believe that qntm was a group aliased as Sam.
- therealdrag0 2y agoIf I don’t know someone’s gender and can’t be bothered to look it up I’ll use “they”. And I know Sam’s of both genders.
- thyrsus 2y agoSam can be short for Samantha or Samuel. "Their" allows one to avoid mis-gendering someone when in ignorance of their gender.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]