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Comment by alliecat | Hacker News Reader

Stallman's still upset that people use singular "they". It's bad grammar, or something. https://stallman.org/articles/genderless-pronouns.html

I go by "they" on a day-to-day basis and generally I don't have any issues with it; it's fairly obvious when someone's referring to me singularly, and people will sometimes use my name a little more often if it's ambiguous.

It's not a big deal except when people elect to make it a big deal; I've had Stallman's blogpost thrown at me on IRC a few times by people who also like dying on the vanishingly small hill that is "People who don't identify with any gender in particular shouldn't be able to use the existing non-gendered pronoun because it's BAD GRAMMAR and that INFRINGES ON MY RIGHTS or some shit"

Tom Scott put it well in an older video of his; "Some people are "They", get over it!"

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The other day I was walking across the quad with my linguistics professor, and we encountered a group of people savagely beating a prescriptivist in broad daylight.

"Oh, my goodness!" I exclaimed, "We have to help!!!"

My professor paused to look at the scene for a moment, then said, "Nah, six should be enough."

I think we agree, and I've edited my comment to clarify. My usual reaction when people refuse to use pronouns such as "they" is that they (hah) don't want to acknowledge gender identities outside of the male/female binary.

But even a maximally charitable reading of this note - which assumes that Stallman genuinely cares deeply about both gender identity and proper classical grammar, and ignores the long historical use of "they" as a singular pronoun - still doesn't pass the smell test for me. A code of conduct is supposed to articulate your organization's higher ideals and how they are put into practice. A link to your personal blog post about how you think modern language is wrong just has no place here.

> My usual reaction when people refuse to use pronouns such as "they" is that they (hah) don't want to acknowledge gender identities outside of the male/female binary.

This is probably different. I for one don't think there are enough non-binaries out there to warrant a generalised pronoun, let alone its generalised used. I believe even most trans people identify as either "he" or "she".

On the other hand, I like to maintain uncertainty whenever someone's gender is either unknown or undisclosed. When talking about a hypothetical individual for instance, being able to refer to them neutrally is convenient. On the other hand, I hate to use "they" whenever there might be a number ambiguity. In those cases, I'll use "he" or "she", or find another phrasing.

Finally, gender-full pronouns are pretty good at disambiguating roles without having to repeat people's names all the time. Crypto examples with Alice and Bob for instance benefit from saying "he" and "she", so the audience (or student) readily understand whether we are talking about the initiator or the recipient.

I don't think we have a good idea of how many nonbinsry people there are. The number of people who openly identify as nonbinary seems to be increasing as awareness and acceptance spread. Those are nowhere near universal.

Referring to Alice and Bob with gendered pronouns is fine becauae we know their genders. Also, the same logic suggests it's convenient for any third party to be nonbinary.

Here's my guess: non binary are less than 1%. Probably less than 0.2%.

We still exist, yo.

Of course you do. I just don't think there is enough of you to warrant a special gender pronoun.

Yet. Who knows how things will be next century.

> is that they (hah) don't want to acknowledge gender identities outside of the male/female binary.

I refuse to use singular 'they' for the same reason I don't name variables 'if' or 'printf'.

If a set of people want another personal pronoun then invent one. Don't overload an existing word.

He / she / ke. There you go.

I'm entirely sympathetic with his preference for precision when at all possible. One of my great pet peeves in modern usage of language is the lack of precision of usage, which I think leads to a lack of precision of thought and communications that creates bad feeling and wastes time unnecessarily. When people are lazy about using words correctly they can also become more generic over time in general, which in turn robs other people of the ability to get their thoughts across as well down the road.

However while I think his examples of where "they" can lead to ambiguity are fair, his argument that "we have a clean, clear and natural solution" is not supported by his own examples. Take the first one for they:

>"When my child was removed and placed with Dad, they internalized it and took it like they did something wrong."

Let's try his "natural" answer:

>"When my child was removed and placed with Dad, person internalized it and took it like pers did something wrong."

What. That's awful. Certainly no better then "ze internalized it" or any other entirely made up word. "Per" and "pers" and "perse" are not "equivalent and interchangeable" with person in normal English at all, and in fact "per" is already in usage as a preposition. He does this whole setup but then his solution falls hilariously flat, and in fact illustrates precisely why people use "they".

If people just want to bite the bullet and try to push a universal gender neutral singular pronoun like "ze" or "zhe" or whatever for English I don't have any problem with that. I think it also might be practical to achieve, it's just "the singular of they" so plural doesn't change and nobody ever needs to think about it again. It has the advantage of laziness, everyone can just start using it everywhere and never have to think about it again. I don't think it can really be pretended that anything existing can just slot in there though, certainly not what RMS came up with.

>I'm entirely sympathetic with his preference for precision when at all possible. One of my great pet peeves in modern usage of language is the lack of precision of usage, which I think leads to a lack of precision of thought and communications that creates bad feeling and wastes time unnecessarily.

I have this same feeling but I also recognize you can be as pedantic as we want to be, or you can be happy and get along with normal humans.

> One of my great pet peeves in modern usage of language is the lack of precision of usage

What makes you think this is a modern thing?

Everything bad is modern. Things used to be so much better back in the before times.

Make English Great Again</s>

The great thing about language is that you can choose the level of precision you want to use.

Gender and Numerus (Singular Plural) ia usually not the kind of precision valuable in my opinion so I am fine with singular they.

Also, as a non-native speaker I don't get how people get outraged about singular they but not singular you. For credibility stallman should start using they.

Belief that (extreme) precision of thought and communication has been achieved is probably more harmful than words having slippery definitions.

> I think it also might be practical to achieve, it's just "the singular of they" so plural doesn't change and nobody ever needs to think about it again. It has the advantage of laziness, everyone can just start using it everywhere and never have to think about it again.

It's already been achieved, and is totally ignored by activist types - "they" has been singular for "they" for hundreds of years.

The disingenuous thing about the anti-third-person-singular-they is that it's been used like that constantly for years, and (other than a few grammar nazis) no one really cared until people wanted to use it for non-binary genders.

There's no need to be so dismissive of Stallman's point of view. He has a great example in your link where using they is ambiguous.

Saying it's not a big deal unless people make it a big deal is not useful. Many people say the same about assuming gender. Language and the way we express ourselves matter and affect the way we think.

As many equivalently ambiguous examples could be formed with he or she, particularly when there are more than one person of the same gender.

There is ambiguity in all natural language and we work around it quite effectively with either assumed knowledge or phrasing which removes the ambiguity (while often adding other ambiguities which aren't plausible so ignored).

Stallman says himself that he can understand his examples, and a couple aren't even ambiguous. He's adding in hypothetical other people to make them ambiguous.

Stallman has highlighted a problem with English and happened to use singular they as an example. He hasn't highlighted a problem with singular they.

The weird thing is that we seem to do just fine with singular you, so it's not obvious - at least, not to me - why singular they would be such a problem.

I don't think the examples are that great as Stallman's suggested replacement doesn't make much sense in them either.

The usage of "you" is very ambiguous. The usage of "cold", or "warm", or "right" or "north" is very much as ambiguous as can be.

Ambiguity –or specificity– has nothing to do with why we talk the way we do. Sometimes, ambiguity is the whole point of a sentence.

>> Every language has grammar rules. They are in the minds of speakers of the language — including, for English, me. The fact that they weren't decided by an official edict doesn't mean these rules are a trivial matter; demanding people change their grammar rules is an affront.

It's an interesting observation. Speakers of a language often (always?) have a strong feeling of what is right and wrong in the language, and this feeling is not usually formally justified. People just know how to speak right- and hearing an incorrect expression feels jarring.

Stallman has touched on something deep here, and although his insistence to pick at it is probably part and parcel of his personality, it is not an unreasonable insistence. Unusual use of pronouns is likely to make many people feel uncomfortable.

This has been explored in linguistics. People do have an innate sense of grammar. However, language use changes over time, of course, and it's absurd to try to prevent that. Here's a good example -- as you said above, "People just know how to speak right." Of course, many English teachers would love to tell you that you're supposed to say "speak correctly" -- but why? It's a widely understood use of the word "right" and most people wouldn't think anything of it. Having standards about written language are necessary and helpful, but arbitrarily dictating the use of words based on their history is not necessary or helpful.

>> However, language use changes over time, of course, and it's absurd to try to prevent that.

I agree, totally. Different people have a different sense of what is right and wrong to say. I'm guessing that is how languages change over time.

But the fact remains that there are things that are very likely to be nearly universally received as wrong. For example, if I say "My mother will eats here tonight" - most people will wonder why I don't say "eat", etc.

Equally, hearing or reading someone use a pronoun like "ey" or "zie" that are not part of what the majority of English speakers will recognise as English is likely to raise an objection from many. I assume listeners or readers who have only a fleeting familiarity with non-binary people, though this may be a bit unrealistic, given the internet etc.

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