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What's the most petty/pointless/pedantic hill you're willing to die on?
(programming.dev)
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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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oh im not talking about that.
i'm talking about quasi-legalese phrases like "he/she may […]" "if he/she agrees", you know. the places where "they" would be both more grammatical and easier to understand
he/she refers to a single individual, they can refer to multiple
They can also refer to an individual though.
yeah, but its an ambiguity that can be picked at in legal settings. He/she makes it very clear that only singular person is being referred to
I guess I found my hill:
If you are worried about your sentence leaving ambiguity for your pronouns, then write a better sentence.
Alright, that's fair, they did specifically say legalese.
I have been learning Spanish with Babbel and the
El/Ella Compra
Will never not sound wrong to me. El & Ella are two people, they Compran something they don't Compra it.
But They as a singular in English absolutely just rolls off my tongue, makes absolute sense, it is what I use.
ohhh yeah I figured my take was only tangentially related but it's even further than I thought. yeah that stuff is silly and also denies the existence of nb folx, lame. I've been (somewhat) successful in using "they" to refer to anyone that I don't directly know the gender of for inclusivity's sake. it really isn't that hard to get used to if you're willing to make an effort.
Yeah, in those cases I sometimes just put "she" instead. If they are the type of person to get upset by that (presumably because it's a he that doesn't want to be mistaken for a she), it's precisely the person I want to offend. Reasonable people don't care.