
Gender neutral language - An FAQ - xs_kid
http://alexgaynor.net/2013/nov/30/gender-neutral-language-faq/
======
FreakLegion
_When a user visits the website, they will be assigned a session ID, and it
will be transmitted to them in the HTTP response and stored in their browser._

There will always be people who resist this kind of construction, not because
they're sexist but because the singular 'they' sounds clumsy to modern ears,
its long history notwithstanding. Instead, try something less periphrastic:

 _Visitors are assigned a session ID, which is transmitted in the HTTP
response and stored in the browser._

Shorter, clearer, more direct, and gender-free.

~~~
snogglethorpe
> _not because they 're sexist but because the singular 'they' sounds clumsy
> to modern ears, its long history notwithstanding_

That's the thing though: it _doesn 't_ "sound clumsy to modern ears" for many
people.

I use "singular-they" completely without thinking; as far as I can recall,
I've never explicitly _decided_ to use it, it just comes naturally when it is
appropriate. The same seems to be true for many others as well.

However for some people (such as yourself, I presume), this obviously isn't
the case.

From there, it's simply a numbers game.

I have no idea where those numbers stand today, but I don't recall anybody
ever even noticing my usage, so it can't be _too_ disturbing for those I
interact with. It's hard for me to judge how many other people use this
construction simply because it's so natural that I don't tend to notice it
when they do.

Still, given that it perfectly addresses an otherwise awkward deficiency in
English, in a way that fits in naturally with other English usage (e.g.,
singular/plural "you") and has both historical precedent and widespread modern
adoption, the future of "singular-they" looks pretty bright...

------
eplanit
"...hostility isn't about intent".

Wrong, it is about intent. By alexgaynor's logic, all traffic accidents are
assaults.

~~~
Rhapso
I think the point here is more that perceived hostility is not about intent.
Perception is reality when you are not there in the user experience to give
more information about your intent.

Another good argument here is that gendered language is intended to be hostile
(as much as a cultural narrative can have intent) and you might just not
realize it.

~~~
ta38383
"perceived hostility" is not "hostility"

The article had me until it basically said using "he" in documentation makes
you an asshole. It does not. Period. You can say it's better to use they, and
I would even agree with it. But the article did not stop there.

[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/he)

There is a prescriptivist movement that has branded the use of a generic "he"
as not generic and therefore sexist. I refuse to feel guilty because someone
else has decided that they can declare language to have officially changed,
and dictate what _I_ meant by words _I_ used.

~~~
chrisdevereux
> The article had me until it basically said using "he" in documentation makes
> you an asshole

I don't think that the author intended any hostility towards you.

~~~
ta38383
touche

...

Although it's hard to read the following as not calling a figurative-me
hostile, for my choice of pronoun.

    
    
        Q: They said I was being hostile!
        A: I'm sorry, but you were.

~~~
chrisdevereux
I guess it depends whether calling figurative-you hostile is itself hostile.
Is it offering advice on how to communicate better, or implying that
figurative-you is an asshole? You could interpret it either way.

------
networked
A better gender-neutral pronoun FAQ:
[http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/](http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/). It
compares the alternatives that can be used as a gender-neutral personal
pronoun (both words already in common use like "they" and neologisms) and
points out the advantages and potential problems of each with a deliberately
constructed text
([http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/faq.html#one](http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/faq.html#one)).

------
chrisdevereux
As a monolingual English speaker, I've always wondered how this works in
languages that use gendered pronouns for referring to inanimate objects
(French, German, etc.)

Does the classification of nouns into masculine and feminine reflect gender
stereotypes at all? Is there a similar movement towards neutral pronouns for
all nouns?

~~~
jb17
No, not for all nouns. But if the noun refers to a person, there are usually
two different nouns for each gender and the male form is often used to include
females. There are modern attempts to fix this by introducing a new noun
(ending) that includes both male and female (or more) genders.

------
ueue
Given that many neologisms are already added to the Oxford English dictionary
every year, I don't see any compelling reason why a singular gender neutral
pronoun (such as the Spanish "su") cannot simply be created.

Such a word might seem strange at first, but if major broadcasters such as the
BBC instructed staff to use it, larger society would soon fall into place – at
least in written English.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
In chinese, the pronoun is pronounced as "ta", but written as 他/她/它 depending
on male, female, or it meaning.

Thankfully, this is a European innovation of Chinese that we mostly ignore.

------
joshka
The sentence is inaccurate, as the user is not assigned a session ID. Instead,
generally the visit is. The user is only the controller of the browser, and
hence for the most part doesn't see any of this. You can also get rid of the
passive voice and make a stronger statement at the same time. Doing all this
reduces the need for any gendered language.

When a user visits the website, the site assigns a session ID to the visit and
transmits it in the HTTP response. The user's browser stores this ID.

/pedant (n.b. there is at least one grammatical error in the above pedantry)

------
jmount
"an FAQ" -> "a FAQ"

~~~
hacknat
depends if you say F-A-Q in your head or not. Interesting discussion:

[http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1016/do-you-
use-a...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1016/do-you-use-a-or-an-
before-acronyms)

~~~
eplanit
Maybe "a FAQ" is sexist, and "an FAQ" is neutral?

~~~
probably_wrong
I know you are joking, but I find the title consistent with the overall tone
of the post. I mean, the writer knows that everyone writes "a FAQ", but he
doesn't care, he'll do it the way it _should_ be, the right way, the correct
view. in other words, in his way.

In both cases I find an attempt to create an issue where I see none, but then
again, that doesn't mean that my view is right either.

~~~
kingkilr
I really had no idea that everyone writes "a FAQ". I read it as "eff-aye-cue",
so I naturally used "an".

------
antoinec
Does someone have already heard or said something like "I've been offended by
the gender of the documentation of Sendgrid, so I chose to go with Mailgun!" ?

~~~
beaugunderson
Unrelated to documentation but relevant to your example companies: I
specifically went with Mailgun instead of Sendgrid for a small project
recently because I remembered how Sendgrid dealt with Donglegate.

------
knowitall
The joker in me wonders if now would be an opportunity to become the biggest
contributor to GitHub of all time by running a script that changes the
pronouns on all repositories.

Nobody can afford to reject such a pull request now...

Or what would happen if we started pestering Linus about including a pronoun
check in git by default?

