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Are these people illiterate? Are they not aware that in the English language masculine pronouns are correct for both gender-specific and gender-neutral uses? Ma
by dreamfactory 13y ago
Are these people illiterate? Are they not aware that in the English language masculine pronouns are correct for both gender-specific and gender-neutral uses? Mankind refers to everybody. It may seem awkward, particularly to over-literal types, but so is our spelling, grammar, and pronunciation generally.
- Brakenshire 13y agoMankind is gender neutral, it's highly debatable whether he, him or his are also.
- CyruzDraxs 13y agoSeveral centuries of linguistic evolution would disagree. Those have always been neutral, though there has been usage of singular "they" dating back to Shakespearean-era. It is somewhat widely accepted that he/him/his is only gender-neutral in situations where the gender is ambiguous though. For example, in writing documentation. Personally, I think it sounds weird and prefer they/one.
- dreamfactory 13y ago> gender neutral, it's highly debatable whether he, him or his are also Not in the English language. It's debated by some whether this might have a subliminal effect and reinforce social gender stereotypes (though no evidence for that hypothesis as far as I'm aware) and therefore whether masculine prepositions _should_ be treated as neutral but that's in the same category as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform. There's nothing wrong with that of course and it can be an interesting hypothesis to pursue - but I find it depressing that a self-proclaimed educated and science-based open source tech community so easily engages on a witch hunt based on pure speculation.