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Anyway a great read, it applies to various contexts, from work and family to politics and online discourse.
I call this the 'everything is related to everything somehow' truism - sure, you can make the case for almost any comment or submission but it's not some universal beat-the-forum-conventions cheat code. Could one write some sort of reasonable comment critiquing this edit? Maybe. But generic, reflexive harumphing is not that and tends to trash threads which is one of the many reasons it's discouraged.
This is the entirety of the comment we are discussing:
"Edited only to reduce gender-specific references". Really?
Effectively it just says ‘Really?’. This is neither discussion nor evidence of any effort to engage in one so if these things matter to you, you might be better off bringing them to the attention of the author of that comment.
But it looks like you're more interested in policing the discussion according to guidelines than engaging in the discussion after people get hip to your policing.
At this point, I'm doubtful if you even tried to read the article that we're talking about because this exchange is starting to feel like a dramatic meta-demonstration of the subject matter (defensive communication) and the community's response to the subject matter (the editor's perceived ignorance of how their changes contribute to defensive behaviors) and I don't think that you are primed to appreciate the success of this achievement.
It has not happened in every instance. Probably for readability, e.g. consider how dense this paragraph would become:
> The person who behaves defensively, even though he or she also gives some attention to the common task, devotes an appreciable portion of energy to defending himself or herself. Besides talking about the topic, he thinks about how he appears to others, how he may be seen more favorably, how he may win, dominate, impress or escape punishment, and/or how he may avoid or mitigate a perceived attack.
Also, use the male form for when you meant both men and women was at that time the prescribed grammatical "style" (as in "A Chicago Manual of Style").
Personally I think just switching, or using "she" consistently, is just as good:
"The person who behaves defensively, even though she also gives some attention to the common task..."
If you really want to be generic, I think using them/they is a much better option:
"The person who behaves defensively, even though they also give some attention to the common task, devotes an appreciable portion of energy to defending themselves. Besides talking about the topic, they think about how they appear to others, how they may be seen more favorably, how they may win..."
People will complain that this is "wrong", but:
1. As you say, the prescription to use "he or she" is clumsy and awkward.
2. It's been in use in English since the 1400s, and has been used in published works by authors like Lord Byron and Jane Austen [1].
It's convenient and well-established; I don't see any reason to continue forbidding it in formal writing.
Just for clarification: What if the article has a negative bias, i.e. an article about criminals, do you still suggest using "she"?
This was still taught in US primary and secondary schools through at least the early '00s.
I think most such "people" (those who oppose the use of singular they) would limit their opposition to a particular subset of usage, which is pointed out in the Wikipedia article you linked to as follows:
> In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals emerged
I doubt they'd be opposed to the centuries-old usage being proposed in this thread, which Wikipedia mentions like so:
> to refer to an unknown person
But who knows!
https://archive.org/details/sim_et-cetera_1965-06_22_2/page/...
I know that HN tolerates archive.is links...not so sure about shadow libraries. But if you know where to look for it, it's available for download.
The he-or-she changes are numerous but insignificant (not consistently done though), but some of the changes to word choices I wouldn't have made (and some are clear errors, e.g. debating -> doubting), and three paragraphs have gone missing (don't know if they got dropped while transcribing into the web page, or were made by the original author at some point).
I’m even less keen on OP’s changes than before. They might as well have written a review of it or an inspired work of their own than render the integrity of the text questionable, even to the slightest extent.
In fact, if you look around to find out who made this transcription (and the minor edits), it turns out this page is a copy from a Geocities website that is now preserved at https://www.oocities.org/toritrust/ and https://www.geocities.ws/toritrust/ — it says “This Web site contains the words of Dr. Jack R. Gibb, and is respectfully dedicated to his memory and to his work” and even carries some unpublished work from him, so it is clearly interested in spreading his ideas, and many of the (minor) changes seem indeed in that spirit. Also it was maintained by Donald Skiff, which matches the "des" signature in:
> Edited only to reduce gender-specific references. des
The OP page (from the submission here) has now a disclaimer at the top saying “I provide this HTML version of a historical article because it was not easily available […] I am not responsible for the transcription or edits otherwise” — no doubt added a result of the discussion on this HN post. It is unfortunate that the carping on this thread (some comment was even trying to use his interests to ascribe motivations to him, assuming he made the edits) has wasted someone's time like this.
Anyway I bought a used copy of the Trust book (1991 edition; the older edition doesn't have this article attached), and will update the gist or add a comment on it comparing the book's version with the webpage's.
Or are you just being reactonary because someone mentioned the word gender?
It is ironic though considering the topic of the document. Every line in it and the comments here are gold it's amazing to see.
On a personal level, I think editing old language for political correctness smacks of revisionism, but if such language must be edited, then the editing should at least preserve the meaning of the original.