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Mankind is gender neutral, it's highly debatable whether he, him or his are also.
by Brakenshire 13y ago
Mankind 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.