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Comment by triyambakam | Hacker News Reader

I was thinking about this. I think there is a trend in English to use they even when the gender is known to indicate a kind of distance from that person. E.g. my guess about the parent poster is that they (he or she in this case, a different usage) may not be very close to the "silicon guy"

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Some time around the year 1500, English speakers stopped addressing each other as "thee" in favor of the plural form "you". The singular "thee" is intimate and informal, but might be considered rude in the wrong context. So using the more polite plural form "you" in all contexts is a safer option.

Many young people seem to use the gender-neutral "they" rather than "he" or "she", even when the gender is known and is unambiguous. This may turn out to be a fad, or it may be a similar generational shift in the language.

What I find quite interesting is in the northern irish dialect, plural you is quite uncommon, usually plural you becomes yous or yousins, because irish has seperate words for singular and plural you

I wonder if the 20th century NYC dialect had "yous" from the wave of irish immigrants. As in "Yous guys ova hee". (Speaking as a native new yorker who doesn't hear this dialect much anymore except for maybe at a mechanic in, say, south brooklyn)

> Many young people seem to use the gender-neutral "they" rather than "he" or "she", even when the gender is known and is unambiguous. This may turn out to be a fad, or it may be a similar generational shift in the language.

I don't know if it's generational, but on the internet it's less clear what someone's gender is, and assumptions have a decent chance of being wrong. The result is that I typically try my best to default to "they" for anyone who hasn't asked me to use different pronouns.

This confuse us foreigners trying to use the English language even more than it must confuse regular english speakers.

Not only did you (you guys, y'all, plural you, whatever...) mix up ye with you, using only the object form, but also started using it for thou and thee. Also, it was thy/thine not yours in the singular form.

I suggest you "fix" your language by reintroducing these words, they (plural they) are not completely lost yet (ref: dialects and the Bible).

https://langeek.co/en/grammar/course/8/archaic-pronouns#revi...

I'll give it a shot, but what about the grammatical singular agreement of the rest of the sentence? Should I leave my second-person verbs in the plural, as in you do, you have, or modify them, as in thou dost, thou hast?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-est#Middle_English

I guess you're basically asking me to speak dialectical Yorkshire.

I agree with this take. How the word "they" was used in the sentence implies a kind of "anonymous other", especially when they're a part of a group like a company. It could have been any member of that group, male or female. And there's a lack of individuality or familiarity, it doesn't matter so much the exact person.

I don't think this is the case. Isn't it that "guy" is essentially gender neutral in this context? In the same way you can reasonably say "hi guys" to greet people of any gender.

"Silicon person", "silicon gal" etc would be weirder phrasing. "Silicon specialist" maybe but I don't personally think any of this merits discussion.

Maybe it's used neutrally in greetings (e.g. "Hi guys,") but when referring to someone specific, if you say they're a guy, it will generally be assumed that person is a man.

There's no maybe about it. And it goes beyond greetings. But I do agree it was non-sensical here

You're right, people do use it neutrally in greetings, not just maybe. And in more than greetings, more as a general form of address. More specifically, I would say that when not used to address multiple people in the second person (i.e. when saying "you guys"), then the word "guy" implies that the referent is male.

Except for idioms like "I've got a guy" where you just mean you've got someone in mind. And that's where I was coming from with "silicon guy" or "hardware guy", "software guy" etc. Just as generic terms for your goto person in those fields, no gender implied.

I hadn't heard anyone use the word "guy" like that before now, and didn't know the word was used like that, so I wasn't thinking of those cases. If you said "I've got a guy" or "software guy" I'd assume you meant you had someone in mind who's a guy, i.e., male. I believe you, though. This might be something that differs regionally.

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