3 ms·
The correct neutral pronoun in English is "he", though using "they" has been very popular in recent years due to a mistaken belief that it's sexist to use the m
by bigstrat2003 1y ago
The correct neutral pronoun in English is "he", though using "they" has been very popular in recent years due to a mistaken belief that it's sexist to use the male pronoun that way. I wouldn't say it's an AI smell at all.
- dragonwriter 1y ago“They” has, in fact, been popular for gender neutral singular use since before the Latin-inspired prescriptivist movement and its attempts to install as “correct” various things that were previously either not dominant or in some cases entirely foreign to English; that movement's influence had actually been fading on that usage and in general for decades even before concerns about sexism in language became significant; singular “they” is no more incorrect than the now-so-universal-most-have-forgotten-the-actual-singular use of the second-person plural when the semantics are in fact singular.
- tbossanova 1y agoNot only is "he" not the "correct" pronoun (however you think "correctness" is defined), it also sounds terribly clunky and confusing. "They" is perfectly natural.