* D. Ben Knoble <vim-dev-git...@256bit.org> [231107 11:30]: > Sticking our heads in the sand and refusing to deal with it because it > isn't "technical" only means we are content with the status quo and > won't change it. I'm not content with the status quo of "he" as > "gender neutral" in technical writing. Singular "they" is accepted and > encouraged in academic and technical writing: > - https://gist.github.com/0xabad1dea/8870b192fd1758743f66 > - https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they > - https://writing.stackexchange.com/q/2979/33198 > > The use of "they" is very established and poses practically no > problems (when ambiguity is introduced, we should be writing without > pronouns anyway to remove it).
I'm sorry, but this is political correctness gone _very_ wrong. Taking a pronoun that has since the beginning of the English language been specifically plural, and trying to use it as sometimes-plural, sometimes-singular, is extremely confusing in many circumstances. Attempting to claim otherwise is sticking your head in the sand. The analogy that "you" can be either singular or plural does not hold any water at all. Again, this has been that way from the beginning of the English language, and it still causes confusion occasionally, but _everyone_ is aware of the potential confusion, and clarification is usually made when necessary. This is not so with written documents that may easily outlive any current political correctness, where the context may be lost in the future. Especially in technical writing, the use of "he" as gender-nonspecific is absolutely clear; there is no specific person to whom the pronoun refers, so it _must_ be nonspecific. Several other suggestions from the gender variant community, such as ze/zir, have been made that are completely unambiguous. Choose one of those. Everyone, especially the gender variant community, should be pushing back on the use of "they" as singular. ...Marvin -- -- You received this message from the "vim_dev" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "vim_dev" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vim_dev+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vim_dev/ZUqCBEF2hx3lOr%2Be%40basil.wdw.
