Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

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> English has male, female, plural of people that is explicitly genderless (but not singular), and singular only of inanimate objects (but not plural). We don't have a pronoun that can fit a singular third gender or genderless reference.

Except that we do. Singular "they" has been used since Shakespeare. And you likely use singular they in your normal speech. When you don't know anything about a particular person, you ask about their attributes. Who they are and what they like, what their name is.

> Adding additional words to English may be required to deal with people who do not wish to use male or female pronouns, but also do not wish to be called an it

Indeed, and we generally do this by asking what those people want to be called, not by prescribing what they are allowed to be called. Prescriptivist language is both ineffective and rude, much as you trying to tell me what my name is is rude.

That said, even if you're interested in prescriptivist approaches, Merriam-Webster[0], and the OED[1] recognize singular they, as do the APA, NYT, and WaPo style guides.

Singular they, for a nonbinary person who prefers the pronoun, or for a person of unknown gender, is the standard. Stallman is the one causing needless conflict by trying to push a different approach when there already is a standard.

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbi...

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

People will figure out what you meant, but also judge your writing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Usage_guidance_i... reports a panel of linguists and writers were 82% against it.

I was taught generic “he.” That upsets some people now, so Strunk & White says rewrite the sentence as plural, and I do.

The survey you're citing is from before I was born. Things have changed in the intervening 25 years.

Pretty much every style guide on the wiki page since ~2010 allows or prefers singular they. This includes, as previously mentioned, the APA, the AP, the NYT, WaPo, and a number of other relatively large and formal publications. Perhaps the odd man out is the Chicago Style guide, which says singular they is fine for informal writing, but doesn't yet recommend it for formal writing.

While yes, some Baby Boomer linguists may prickle at the singular they, for many in Gen Z, its all they've ever been exposed to, and for many Millenials, they've now used singular they for longer than other forms, in both formal and informal language.

I'd still like a dedicated plural to use as a pronoun for a group. We could get a new word for that.

Sounds like prescriptivism to me.

They described what is presently the case, so that couldn't reasonably be considered prescriptivism.

There have been many genderless pronouns proposed over a long time. Declaring singular-they "standard" and then prescribing it despite the other options (and criticising the other options as nonstandard) is just the same old story.

There are a bunch of reasons why people like different words, and telling them their choices are bad (read: nonconforming) is prescriptive.

Perhaps I should rephrase: they is a reasonable default. If someone doesn't prefer they, they'll tell you and then you should use what they prefer instead.

Nowhere should you use "pers", unless someone specifically requests you use that pronoun for them. Stallman insisting other people use "pers" is bad and prescriptive. I would similarly say that neopronouns are nonstandard, but if someone asked me to use one, I would. I wouldn't insist on referring to them with "they", or "pers", once that person made their preference known.

Suggesting stallman adopt already commonly used and widely accepted terminology and style is not.

There is a confusion here that they can be used in two contexts: one for a person of unknown gender, and one for a person who prefers they/them pronouns. Stallman claims that they isn't acceptable in the first case (it is) and that "pers" should be prescribed in the second (it should not, you should use a person's preferred pronoun).

(Note here again how singular they/them/their is naturally used in this context).

> Stallman insisting other people use "pers" is bad and prescriptive.

I don't know if he's insisting other people use pers, but I wouldn't support that if so.

> There is a confusion here that they can be used in two contexts: one for a person of unknown gender, and one for a person who prefers they/them pronouns. Stallman claims that they isn't acceptable in the first case (it is)

Sure, 'singular they' are fine options for unknown gender and for people who ask for 'they'.

> Nowhere should you use "pers", unless someone specifically requests you use that pronoun for them.

I don't agree with this. Simply because "they" is common doesn't mean it's uniformly better than the alternatives. For example, it introduces singular-plural ambiguity in some cases where, say, "xe" doesn't.

> .... and that "pers" should be prescribed in the second (it should not, you should use a person's preferred pronoun).

There are politeness, inclusiveness, and gender-equality arguments in favor of calling people by their preferred pronoun. There are other factors as well. For example, I'd rather not refer to the high-born as "his royal highness" because I believe in equality. Likewise, I'd rather not specify gender at all, but singular-they isn't common for that, e.g. "this is my girlfriend Sarah, they like yogurt".

So I'd rather keep the options open and not sanction people for promoting alternatives.

I'd suggest you read stallmans writing on the subject. In brief its "here's why I will not use singular they, even when asked, and will always use pers when referring to gender nonconforming people, it and you should too."

It drew umbrage from trans and non-binary folk for good reason.

And it is highly prescriptive on a way that adopting the preferred language of the community your are speaking about is not.

It's also hard to see it as not an attack on such people, as he employs precisely the same rhetorical tricks as he does when attacking companies he dislikes and disproves of.

Ok I read it. I get what you're saying. Refusing to call people by their preferred pronouns is impolite, and if it's a group that has trouble getting recognition then it feels worse.

That said, he does have ground to stand on: I don't think "they" for a specific, individual person with known gender (see examples above) has been in English for very long -- at most 20 years in the US, and its use in those cases does break almost everybody's English grammar, and it reduces clarity in places where alternatives don't.

Therefore I don't see it as an attack on people who want to require "they", even though I understand where you're coming from. Instead, I see it as consistent with his free-software advocacy: he's defending people's ability to control the programming language they use in their own mind and protect it from externally imposed breaking changes.

> 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. You might succeed in convincing me to change the English grammar rules in my mind, but don't you dare demand it.

I see someone downvoted you, it wasn't me.

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