
Reminding Starbucks that Beautiful Code Should Make Beautiful Language - apdinin
http://aarondinin.com/2013/07/a-pro-grammar-nerd-reminding-starbucks-that-beautiful-code-should-make-beautiful-language/
======
PhasmaFelis
As a grammar nerd, I call bullshit. "They" as gender-neutral singular pronoun
has been part of the English language for centuries, and it's only in the last
hundred years or so (give or take a bit, I don't have time to look it up right
now) that prescriptivists have started freaking out about it. Yeah, it's a
little awkward, but modern English NEEDS a gender-neutral singular pronoun,
and "they" is the best we have.

It was good enough for Shakespeare, and it's good enough for me.

------
ronaldx
I dislike the premise of this article.

All the alternatives have worse disadvantages:

\- repeating the name "Matt" is awkward

\- gender is an awkward requirement for sending a giftcard

\- assuming someone is male unless they are known to be female is awkward

\- "he/she" is awkward

And, crucially:

\- singular _they_ is widely used and understood and has significant
historical precedent
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)

~~~
rtb
+1. This article is rubbish. Singular "they" is fine.

------
jofer
I don't understand the outrage over singular "they". I agree that it's not
particularly logical, but what part of the English language is?? It sounds
natural, at least. It's certainly widely used, and will likely become a
"correct" form within a few decades.

The OP suggests guessing gender from names. There are too many unusual cases
and gender-neutral names to be able to guess gender from a name alone. Even
ignoring non-english-speaking world, I know several guys named "Kelly" and
"Kim" and I have a female cousin named "James" (she goes by "Jill", though).

Adding a gender field is often not feasible and a bad idea for other reasons
(gender identity, etc). It's far better to sidestep the issue with commonly-
used-but-not-quite-formally-correct grammar, i.m.o.

~~~
jaibot
Singular "they" is a real thing. People who get upset about it are the worst.

------
aaronbrethorst

        Wasn’t that easy?
    

No, because there are a reasonably large number of people, especially in
Starbucks' home town, who want to be referred to as ze, zer, or one of a
number of other gender-neutral, recently-minted pronouns. [http://www.warren-
wilson.edu/~writingcenter/Gender-Neutral_L...](http://www.warren-
wilson.edu/~writingcenter/Gender-Neutral_Language.pdf)

So now you either need to ask a user for their name _and_ preferred pronoun,
or just refer to them as "they".

~~~
kyllo
Did you read the article? The point he made was, if you don't know which
gendered pronoun to use, just use their name!

"In a case like the generic email I got from Starbucks where the gender of the
purchaser is likely unknown, the solution is even easier. Try this little
programmatic trick:

    
    
        [$first_name] [$last_name] wanted to make your day so [$first_name] sent you a $20.00 USD Starbucks Card eGift to spend on your favorite beverage."
    

Or "this person" would work in many situations as well.

Also, what is "especially in Starbucks' home town" supposed to mean?

~~~
FireBeyond
Bleh. I think his "correction" is as 'horrific a travesty against language' as
the original:

"John Smith wanted to make your day so John sent you a gift card."

That is not even remotely elegant.

~~~
parennoob
^ This. Using a noun instead of a pronoun just because you didn't know what
pronoun to use defeats the entire purpose of a pronoun and makes a ghastly
sentence which would have been thrown out of my grammar class back in high
school.

Honestly, I'm surprised that:

a) He's writing _this_ opinionated a post just to provide a solution which is
_that_ horrible.

b) He teaches English at UMCP. Pronouns in language are a difficult problem to
solve at the best of times, and someone who proposes this sort of a
'bulletproof' solution of "Well, just Replace It with a Noun when you're
confused!" worries me as an English professor.

------
gruseom
_Speaking of pretentious-douchebag-grammar-nerds, allow me to explain the
evolution of the “I’m going to refer to a singular noun with a plural pronoun”
linguistic phenomenon. It’s a product of increased gender equality. People
used to generically refer to everyone as males_

That's entirely and entirely typically wrong. Singular "they" has been well-
established in English for centuries. The great writers have always used it
freely—that includes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dickens, Oscar Wilde,
and seemingly everybody else. "A person can't help their birth," says Becky
Sharp in _Vanity Fair_. (Edit: it's fun to dig up these classical examples,
because they sound so modern and fresh. "Experience is the name everyone gives
to their mistakes"—Wilde. "It's enough to drive anyone out of their
senses"—Shaw. "Everybody does and says what they please"—Byron.)

The ironic thing is that the "rule" about generic "he" (and later, "he or she"
and all the other stilted variants) was fabricated by grammarians who looked
at how English actually worked, said "Goodness no that can't be right because
Latin doesn't do that", and started telling everybody their grammar was wrong.

(Notice how I just used singular "they". Should I have said, "telling
everybody his grammar was wrong"? Or "his or her", or "his/er", or just "her",
if you're one of those? Or, to adapt the OP's suggestion, "telling everybody
everybody's grammar was wrong"?)

People never stopped using it, though, and by 1850 the grammarians were so
indignant about this that they petitioned the British Parliament to make "he"
the legal standard. And people kept on using "they", because it works.

Edit: There are so many sources on this that you can't kick Google without
stirring some up, but
[http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-
th...](http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-
many-reasons-why-its-correct/) and
[http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html](http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html)
are particularly good and
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html)
is hilarious.

------
jdminhbg
Asking for a gender on a signup form with binary choice is a good way to end
up at the center of a protest from the perpetually aggrieved. Repeating the
sender's name in consecutive clauses is clunky and jarring. It would be much
easier to just reconstruct the sentence slightly:

"Matt Hofstadt wanted to make your day by sending you..."

------
Mindless2112
Singular they was covered on an episode [1] of Lexicon Valley, which might be
enlightening to anyone who opposes its use (and interesting to pretty much
anyone).

[1]
[http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2012/05/lexicon_valley_seeking_a_gender_neutral_alternative_to_he_and_she_.html)

------
tehwalrus
They isn't just plural, it's also gender-neutral.

Gender neutral pronouns: they're here to stay[1].

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ehrFk-
gLk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46ehrFk-gLk)

------
emef
This would require either a whole new field on the checkout form (gender) or
some incomplete database lookup for gender-name mappings; neither is a good
option. Using 'they' is pretty common practice to refer to someone gender
neutrally.

------
jonsterling
This is so fucking stupid. “They” has been a singular pronoun since the Middle
English period (Linguist here).

------
paul_willis
You could have called Starbucks out for things a lot worse than using a
singular 'they'.

------
joezydeco
For every Starbucks messing up he/she/they, I can count 10 websites that can't
get this right:

    
    
      printf("%d %s in your cart",x,(x==1) ? "item" : "items");
    
      0 items
      1 item 
      2 items
    

I could swear eBay printed "1 items" for the first decade of it's existence.

~~~
kzrdude
you'll have to revisit that for localization, you could use ngettext or
similar right away.

~~~
joezydeco
That's a whole level of difficulty above this, my friend.

------
JosephRedfern

        Redeeming your eGift couldn't be easier. All you need to do is:
        1. Redeem your eGift
        2.
        3.
    

That doesn't really work for me, either. Surely steps 2/3 would never be
reached - you'd end up in an infinite eGift redemption loop!

------
noctolater
Something a lot of people are missing: Not all cultures do [first name] [last
name].

~~~
gojomo
Indeed, and asking for (and subsequently handling) first-name/last-name splits
can thus be awkward.

Also, while I haven't stepped through Starbucks' gifting flow recently, gift
cards might be given by collective entities as well, like "Your friends on the
swim team" or "The Middleton Book Club".

'They' works better for that, too.

Starbucks' copywriter (or copywriters) knew what they were doing.

------
lmm
"Matt Hofstadt wanted to make your day so Matt sent you..." is uglier and less
pleasant to read than the version with "they've". I don't see any argument in
the article for what's actually wrong with using "they" \- sure, it violates
one of English's alleged rules, but the author acknowledges that those rules
don't actually matter.

(Personally I think women should insist on being called "he" \- "she" is a
grammatical diminutive which implies inferiority - but given that they
haven't, singular they is the best approach available).

~~~
egypturnash
(I'm a woman and I really would rather not textually eradicate my gender,
thank you very much.)

~~~
lmm
"poetess" has been more or less eliminated from the language, and "actress"
and "policewoman" are on their way out - at the behest of feminist groups. So
it seems your compatriots disagree with you?

------
herbig
Using singular they is fine, but since too many people will jump on you and
say you're doing it wrong, it's probably a better play to just restructure the
whole sentence to avoid gender and the awkward double first name. Something
like:

"$NAME wants to make your day with a $20 gift card..."

The author here is incorrect. I also dislike namedropping random startups /
people I've never heard of, or actually just namedropping in general.

Also: [http://xkcd.com/326/](http://xkcd.com/326/)

------
apdinin
As the author, I should probably take my own advice and do what I always tell
my students. If the structure of the sentence causes so much controversy that
it distracts from the meaning, change the sentence. Allow me to offer an
alternative that solves everything:

"Matt Hofstadt wanted to make your day by sending you a $20.00 USD Starbucks
Card eGift to spend on your favorite beverage."

~~~
jlgreco
> _" As the author, I should probably take my own advice and do what I always
> tell my students."_

The structure of that sentence irrationally infuriates me. I find it so
distracting that I have been unable to glean any meaning from the rest of your
post. You should therefore change it.

------
jlgreco
> _" the mistake is surely damaging the “high quality” brand Starbucks
> cultivates in order to sell $5 coffee."_

I would _love_ to see the author try to seriously defend that assertion.

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haliphax
Not only is singular "they" perfectly acceptable, but the author neglected to
point out the missing comma in the first sentence.

------
pasquinelli
they can be used for singular. grammarians are, necessarily, several decades
behind their actual language (but they never seem to want to admit it).

anyway, if Aaron Dinin really wants a fix, they (!!!) should've just removed
the sickening and pointless, "wanted to make your day". so:

"Matt Hofstadt sent you a $20.00 USD Starbucks Card eGift to...", blah blah
blah blah blah.

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thehme
ha! this is awesome coming from super expensive coffee selling Starbucks, who
just increased the price of their products, so they can pay for professional
editing...lol, j/k

The author's solution about using the first name of the person should be the
standard across the board. It hurts to read these sentences as much as reading
bad code.

