Hacker News Reader

Comment by DC-3 | Hacker News Reader

> Jupyter presents a unique programming style where the programmer can change her code while it's running....

Is the author trying to make some kind of statement by using 'her' as a gender neutral third person pronoun? Surely, if this is something they care about (and reasonably so), 'their' would be the logical choice? It's frustrating that the author chooses to be deliberately obtuse in their use of language - to the (slight) detriment of readability.

View on HN

I understand "their" as a plural, so for lack of it, there are no good gender-neutral singular third person pronouns. In my writing I've quite often used "he" in the past, so I try to keep it balanced. I don't consider this deliberately obtuse, since I find it just as disorienting to see "their" used in a singular context.

That's interesting, since 'her' in this context causes something equivalent to a Parse Error in my brain, but 'their' flows completely naturally for me.

Perhaps that's something you should evaluate about yourself then, because I don't think you'd raise the same ParseError if the profession were "nurse". Unconscious biases don't have to be malicious to exist, and I catch myself thinking the way you describe sometimes before realising "wait, this should be fine though".

It's nothing to do with the fact that it's about software development, I don't think (or at least hope). I just find it jarring to see 'her' used as an 'abstract' gender neutral pronoun. In my mind, 'his' has two semantically distinct definitions, and 'her' has just one - and that's just how the English language works.

Agree to disagree on this being a universal 'abstract' gender neutral pronoun problem, and not being profession related.

> I understand "their" as a plural

Singular "they" has been in use in English for centuries. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they or https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbi... for example.

their is an acceptable third person pronoun. its been in use for centuries in English. some 19th century grammarians may have tried to intervene. it is my preferred usuage.

"her" doesn't bother me at all, or at least no more than "his". but, i guess, some people see the former as political or agenda driven, and the latter as neither. but i suppose that a white person's policy of always addressing a black man with the same honorifics as they would have addressed a white person, might have been considered agenda-driven and ideological by their peers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com