Comment by zahlman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zahlman | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>I don't know how you ascribe some particular uses of language that are outside the mainstream with my descriptive note that language has moved towards mostly using gender-neutral terms.

I disagree that the standard use of established feminist terminology is "outside the mainstream". Anyway, the point is that they are obviously not gender-neutral terms. It is a blatant double standard to suppose that the term "chairman" disparages women by its construction (despite no such original intent), but that the term "patriarchy" doesn't disparage men by its construction (when it was specifically constructed to describe a construct, by academics who had free choice).

> e.g. the King James Bible has quite a bit

No, that's precisely "an indefinite, hypothetical or otherwise vaguely described person (e.g. the perpetrator of a crime before being identified)". Other examples I could find myself were not any more compelling.

> However, I have heard people say that they thought that it wasn't societally permissible for them to do something based on the way the nouns and pronouns used in sentences

Within the last quarter-century or so? Despite the readily available evidence of other people of the same gender doing that thing?

Using "chairman" to describe a position implies that it's occupied by a man. And the writing may need to be revised for someone who is female who doesn't want to be referred to as a chairman or mailman.

Using "patriarchy" to describe a specific male-headed familial structure is for the purpose of criticism is descriptive, just like "matriarchy" is. Of course, it can be misused, like in the cases you pillory.

> No, that's precisely "an indefinite, hypothetical or otherwise vaguely described person (e.g. the perpetrator of a crime before being identified)".

I thought you were drawing a different distinction; it's definitely the personal singular they. That exact type of usage is when I use "they" to refer to a person of indeterminate gender, e.g. someone to be hired.

> Within the last quarter-century or so? Despite the readily available evidence of other people of the same gender doing that thing?

Much less within the last quarter-century... in part because all of the style guides about this stuff changed about 40 years ago, when I was a small child.

> Using "chairman" to describe a position implies that it's occupied by a man.

No, obviously not. A "chairman" can just as well be a woman. What it does imply is just that _historically_, chairmen were mostly men. You might object to the word because its etymology reveals a past where men occupied these roles, but it is not true at all that the word today implies anything about the sex of the person.

> That exact type of usage is when I use "they" to refer to a person of indeterminate gender, e.g. someone to be hired.

Yes, if you are giving instructions to the guard at the front, telling him (sic) to "let them in", that is the traditional, organic usage. Which is distinct from the politicised usage where you either know that the candidate is a woman but still say "them", or its a person that considers herself "non-binary" and insists that you use gender neutral language. Those two situations are different from the traditional usage.

> know that the candidate is a woman but still say "them"

Actually, the he or she agreeing with "them/their" later in a sentence is old and widely accepted. So a fair deal of this usage is a linguistic oddity.

> or its a person that considers herself "non-binary" and insists that you use gender neutral language.

The preferred personal pronoun thing is different. It has its own discussion and justification.

I am purely talking about "they/them" to refer to people of unknown gender, instead of "he" or "he/she"-- the singular, personal "they".

It went from occasional use in the 1300s-1600s to "wrong" in the 1800s. Now it's emerging as a best practice. Even though style guides that otherwise moved to gender neutral language in the 80's rejected it, it grew organically for quite awhile before starting to become accepted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com