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Comment by throwanem | Hacker News Reader

Consider, when describing an arbitrary and even perhaps notional human in the singular, using literally any pronoun other than 'it'. Neuter humans are very rare, and, at least in English, using grammatically neutral pronouns to refer to humans has a long and unlovely history.

Use the singular 'they' instead. If you find that too grammatically egregious to be borne (as I do), alternate masculine and feminine pronouns (as I do). Or default to the feminine pronoun except when speaking specifically of someone male. Or default to the grammatical, if presently unfashionable, collective use of masculine pronouns. Just, seriously, do something that doesn't entail referring to a human as 'it'.

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> Use the singular 'they' instead. If you find that too grammatically egregious to be borne

Then you've bought into the bizarre, quixotic, and increasingly-being-rejected effort by Victorian elites to try to pretend that English is some strange constructed Latinate language and not, well, English.

And you should give up.

OTOH, if you really need to refer to a gender neutral abstract person in English, and really can't bring yourself to use "they", learn to use "one" properly. This can require restructuring sentence and not just dropping a different pronoun in, e.g., this:

  the human should have total control over "how important" a given technology is to it.

might become:

  one should have total control over "how important" a given technology is to oneself.

> the bizarre, quixotic, and increasingly-being-rejected effort by Victorian elites

I'd be curious to see this perspective detailed at greater length.

Singular "they" is attested back to the 14th century. (Note that this would actually be Middle English!) It met a lot of resistance in the 19th century by various prescriptive grammar books.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Trend_to_prescri...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription

Wider usage of "one" -- in German, man -- is something I miss from studying German. It's a pretty elegant solution when it can be used.

Of course, the German version catches flak for being too close to "man" (Mann), and is sometimes replaced with frau (Frau meaning "woman"). So it goes.

Why does it matter when the meaning is clear and unambiguous?

Why doesn't it?

Because the point of language is to communicate, and if you've communicated effectively then you're done. What is the history you were referring to? Does using "it" offend some people, or something?

Yes. "It" as a pronoun is used to denigrate marginalized group such as ethnic minorities, individuals who do not adhere to traditional binary gender norms, or other groups that one may wish to, in a way, remove their humanity through pronoun usage. "It," in modern English, is cold, unliving, and reserved for objects rather than living people.

Ok, I guess I see where you're coming from, although that sort of usage seems almost too over the top to happen in real life. But as I said in another comment, we're not referring to a specific person in this context, we're talking about an abstract human being. Unless there's a risk of denigrating "users of technology" or something, I don't see an issue.

> I don't see an issue

Others seem to. It may be worth taking their perspective into account along with your own. But that's your consideration to make.

Yes (again). It is sadly still very prevalent in trans/genderqueer/genderfucked communities, but I don't quite see the connection to this abstract human/spambot the grandparent was offended by/referring to.

Hardly offended, if it's me you mean there. I just think it's not a good habit to get into.

Does it make your communication more effective to structure it in a fashion which distracts from its substance?

No, so I guess I'm asking why you think it distracts from the substance. It seems unambiguously clear to me, and I can't immediately think of a way to take offense, especially in this context where the subject is just an abstract non-specific person.

I get that objectification and dehumanization have been and continue to be huge problems, I just don't see an issue here. If you're talking about a specific person, it's weird and possibly offensive, but that's not the case here.

I think it distracts from the substance because this is the latest comment in a moderately sized and growing conversation which has nothing to do with the substance. To be sure, that conversation is one I started, but consider the possibility that other people, who are unlike me not obstreperous asses, might just quietly ignore whatever you have to say as a result of the linguistic choice with which I've taken such vocal issue.

Yes, I did consider that possibility, that's why I asked. legodt's comment about why it might be offensive is all I was looking for, I genuinely did not think of that interpretation.

That's reasonable.

I do try to avoid basing arguments on the concept of offense, because there seem to be a lot of people for whom that is a red flag that terminates the possibility of further meaningful discussion, and also because I have some qualms of my own around the way it's used in modern discourse.

I nonetheless feel I should apologize for having, apparently without justice, taken you to be such a person, and felt it necessary as a result to argue with more care, and more circumlocution, than the situation apparently required. I'm sorry for that. Thanks for not being that guy.

Referring to people as "it" is fairly common in colloquial Finnish, and there's no sordid associations there

We are not now speaking Finnish, colloquial or otherwise.

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