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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

> The site is the work of a guy, "him", and "his" work. We don't have to guess and say "them" and "their" work.

Assumptions are presumptuous and harmful. Everyone is a they/them until otherwise stated. These are extremely useful pronouns.

You're a they/them.

Calm down. You seem to be overly attached to regressive labels. I don't know what drives this in you, but the universe is burning and people just want to be happy. Your life is short; you're going to die and rot away. Is this really something to get worked up over?

In the future, when our descendants are all uploaded to computers or replaced by an AI overlord, people will be all sorts of genders. They won't be bound by yesterday's norms. Would you be a stuffy gender policeperson, or will you just let people be who they are?

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>You're a they/them.

Why on Earth are you trying to dictate someone else's pronouns?

“They” is historically understood to be plural. Some information fidelity is lost if “they” can mean multiple people and a person.

Language is hard, so I understand the need for compromise. “Zee” could be used to avoid gender centric labeling while maintaining language clarity.

That is not true. Singular they has been in use as long as plural they. It has always been understood to be usable in either situation.

I'm sure there are examples, but in common use it is understood to be plural and has been used that way in all writing for a long time.

That is not correct

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Usage

> They with a singular antecedent goes back to the Middle English of the 14th century... and has remained in common use for centuries...

> in common use it is understood to be plural

What I said is correct. Prior to about 4-5 years ago you did not find people using they in the singular, hence "in common use".

> I’m sure there are examples, but in common use it is understood to be plural and has been used that way in all writing for a long time.

It is grammatically plural, but it has been accepted for semantically singular use since long before the Victorian effort to impose Latin-inspired rules on English usage which failed to eradicate it despite intense effort. (Victorian prescriptivism did have some good effects — regularized spelling FTW — but trying to eradicate clear and useful usages like singular “they” was one of its less-well-considered, but fortunately also less-successful, efforts.)

> in common use it is understood to be plural

Nothing in what you wrote contradicts what I stated. The man on the street thinks they is plural, and nearly all writing treats it that way. Historical examples excepted.

Historically understood to be plural by you.

Actual-historically, from 1375, not so much.

https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they...

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