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Comment by cpr | Hacker News Reader

His attempt to be PC and make the firee a "she" backfired--it sounds sexist to have the failing executive be female.

Give it up, folks--just use "he" as a generic pronoun. No one thinks it means you think one gender is better than the other.

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There's nothing wrong with "they" as third person singular.

Except that it sounds terrible if one was brought up according to a different light. English already has a third person personal singular.

Many languages have unexpected pronoun usage that newcomers must get used to. Many Indo-European languages have a formal 'you', for example. With French, it's the same as 2nd person plural (you). With German, it's the same as 3rd person plural (they). French also has the odd case of 'on' which, although it's a 3rd person singular (e.g., one goes = on va), is very frequently used as 1st person plural (we go = nous allons).

Where there is a missing component in language, there will be a cognitive need to fill it somehow. It can be done with formations like y'all or with more acceptable usage such as they. I think we English speakers worry too much about this sort of thing.

In Dutch, there is 'jij' (colloquial 'you') and 'u' (formal 'you'). There is a trend to replace both 'jij' and 'u' by 'joe' (pronounced as the english 'you'). This eliminates the dilemma whether to address someone formally or not. The word 'joe' was popularized by Wim T. Schippers both on the radio and in his plays and TV series.

Singular "they" goes back centuries. Shakespeare and Jane Austen both used it. Its comeback as the solution to the gender-neutral conundrum seems to me a pretty good answer to changing social conditions. It does stand out too much sometimes, but "he" and "she" stand out way worse, especially the dreadful overcompensating "I'll just self-consciously regulate my gender distribution and make sure that at least half of the time my programmers and executives are a she" business, which is based on a misunderstanding of how language evolves. You don't get to pick and choose your own usages - not without sounding pompous and stilted.

None of these options are perfect because language, like society, is in a transitional period. But I'd be surprised if singular "they" doesn't end up winning. To my ear it has already very much pulled ahead. Not that it matters what any of us thinks. Language will evolve however it does. Usages are incorrect until they hit critical mass and become correct.

Unfortunately, when one makes use of "one", it gives the impression that the writer has his or her nose aloft (complete with a monocle placed in one eye-socket).

Ben always uses 'she' in his posts.

I'd say he's going for being contrarian rather than PC. It didn't sound sexist to me, likely because the CEO was also female.

It did not backfire. It should not be given up.

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