But organizations should be, at least I'm on that camp.
Edit: Well actually, I can think of some orgs. that should be polarized by nature, like those meant to promote change. But a foundation that "works to ensure the internet remains a public resource that is open and accessible to us all" should be quite neutral on all others topics beyond that.
I think I understand this opinion, but I'm not sure this is actually possible. I don't think political neutrality really exists. The closest thing that exists is status quo and mainstream / widespread opinions / beliefs.
On any subject that's not the main mission of the org, people will have any sort of opinions, on one side or another. Sometimes biased towards one of the sides depending on the mission or the actual people it attracts.
(sometimes on the main mission too actually, but in this case the org is in trouble / needs to adapt the mission - it can be an existential crisis)
And if for some idea, the mainstream / status quo outside the org is biased toward one side, this bias might also affect the org because the org lives in this world.
Let's take an (imperfect?) example: about veganism/vegetarianism/non-vegetarianism, what is the neutral stance? If the org needs to organize a dinner, some side will need to be taken. Allowing everything to accommodate the preferences of every person is not neutral. That's the status quo however, usually. You can only have "presence of animal-based food" or "absence of animal-based food". Nothing in between. You need to pick a side, take a non neutral-decision.
In the case of Brendan being rejected, people were going to be pissed either way. If he stayed, it would have pissed people who thought Brendan was not desirable as a CEO of an organization like Mozilla which is supposed to be inclusive because of his anti same-sex wedding actions. Because he left, it pissed people who thought his personal opinions should not matter. And both sides have a point, which is the hardest part.
> By allowing choice you are taking a neutral path.
By deciding to serve meat to people who want it, you already decided that the necessary meat production is okay enough that your org will endorse it, which is not consensual. Many vegetarian people stopped eating meat not for their own comfort and pleasure, but because they actually think meat is not okay (for environmental reasons, for the animal suffering, or whatever). Usually they won't complain because they don't want to be seen as jerks and to force their views onto people, and because serving meat is very normal, but that's still not neutral. Maybe in 10 or 20 years not serving meat will be seen as an obvious environmental measure to apply and will become the status quo, and serving meat the weird thing to do, but that won't be neutral neither.
By the way, if my preference is zucchini, will you make sure I can have it? Why not, and why the special treatment for the meat, of all food a human can eat, then? That's not neutral.
I'm sure this example won't convince everyone though and that's why I called it imperfect, so let me find something else.
As a bus company in Alabama in the 1950s, what was the neutral thing to do? Letting people sit in their bus anywhere no matter their skin color, or to force "colored" passengers to sit at the back?
In South America in the 1800s, was it neutral to let people have slaves? That was probably considered normal / acceptable. Neutral? I guess not for the slaves.
Today at a bar, do you serve your drink with a straw by default? If you do, in the eyes of some people, you are producing waste for no good reason. If you don't, for others, you might be breaking their expectation to have a straw and that's unacceptable for them, and it is your duty to serve them well, just letting them pick one on their own is not enough.
Today, when speaking about someone and you don't know the gender of the concerned person, do you refer to this person using "they"? Is it neutral, or is it pushing fancy new pronouns that break English and don't sound natural? Is "neutral he" neutral then? Is "he or she" good enough when there are non-binary people out there? By the way, do you acknowledge that some people are non-binary? If so, aren't you too much into this LGBT stuff? If you don't, aren't you too close-minded?
You are creating a new company. Full remote? Okay, now, you are pissing off people who feel better in a office. Everybody at the office, then? No, that can't be neutral in 2023. Hybrid then? Ok, but now you are forcing people into some uncomfortable mix where remote workers are missing out on the office talks and office workers need to bother with setting up video calls with remote workers all the time, and to put up with video calls from the colleagues next to them all day. Here I don't see which would be the neutral choice, I think there isn't actually.
There might be consensual topics, but you have to pick sides for most decisions, even if the side you take is the status quo.
Well said, but one of your examples is not quite like the others:
> Is [singular they] neutral, or is it pushing fancy new pronouns that break English and don't sound natural?
Singular “they” is actually the traditional English approach. "Neutral he" is a neo-Latinate prescriptivism: it was relatively obscure until Victorian-era schooling¹ drummed these Rules of English Grammar into everybody's heads.² Even people who swear by singular “they” being ungrammatical usually use it idiomatically, because it's so baked in to the language: it wasn't proscribed for long enough to actually fall out of use.
Neopronouns are a better example: for some people, the class of English pronouns is closed, but for other people it's not. (Or, you could just set the clock back a couple hundred years, and use "neutral he" as your example.)
¹: Contemporaneous with the romantic movement, which gave us the Cult of the Bard. A man who, like his contemporaries, used singular 'they' in his writing.
²: See also: “to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before” (Douglas Adams). Totally kosher in the 14th century, but the same kinds of people who gave us “scissors” (an atrocious spelling, rivalling "cysowres" in its arbitrarity! What was wrong with "sisours"?) decided that splitting infinitives was ungrammatical. This has a much longer history of rejection (comparable with the duration of the transatlantic slave trade, encompassing the transition betwixt Englis and EMnE, and long enough for the construction to actually disappear outside poetry), so it would probably work as an example, too.
> > Is [singular they] neutral, or is it pushing fancy new pronouns that break English and don't sound natural?
> Singular “they” is actually the traditional English approach.
It's traditional for those of unknown gender. I believe (we could always ask) that the statement you're replying to implies "Is [singular they] for those of known gender neutral, or is it pushing fancy new pronouns that break English and don't sound natural?" because that's the new use.
I actually somehow knew that singular they is not exactly new, but not to this level of details.
But that only makes the argument more interesting: something that was normal was lost, and is now somehow coming back in some form… with push backs like "it breaks the English grammar" , where English actually already worked like this before (for the exact same use or not). Push backs I saw here on HN, or on RMS's website [1]. Regardless the new use, the grammar construct was actually there all along.
I love both your and the parent answers by the way, thanks!
They used to refer to someone (as a singular pronoun) whose gender is unknown has been valid English for hundreds of years.
He to refer to someone whose gender is unknown is, as the link you provided points out, a more recent addition to English grammar and could be starting to fall away again.
They to refer to someone whose gender is known can be and is used occasionally but can sound strange at times too, he or she would and should usually be preferred.
To only use they to refer to someone whose gender is known is novel, forced, and contradicts the previous rule so it does break grammar (as the other link from Stallman shows).
• The third-person plural 'they' is uncontroversial.
• The third-person singular 'they' for an unknown (but not general) individual, while valid English in nearly all dialects, went through a period of being proscribed for no apparent reason.¹
• The third-person singular 'they' for a specific individual, of unknown gender, was proscribed and uncommon. Evidence of its historical use is a lot rarer than the unknown-individual usage.
• For a known individual of known binary gender, you normally use the pronoun corresponding to their gender. (As you observed, neutral 'they' is becoming popular as an alternative.)
• For a known individual of known non-binary gender, it gets trickier. It's hard to separate language from culture, and English culture has more-or-less² only had two genders throughout the EMod–Modern English period: denoted by 'he' and 'she', respectively.³ To describe a non-binary individual who's sufficiently far from either of those categories is impossible, unless you fall back on the closest available construction: once 'it', currently 'they'.
To use 'they' to refer to somebody whose gender is known is a relatively recent construction – but English has been steadily losing its gender for the past few centuries. A few decades ago, to people in rural areas of England, a hedge was 'she', not 'it'. Now, we have sewists, and a woman's hair can be 'blond'. It breaks grammar no more than any other option would – and certainly less than the loss of 'thou' did:
> Again, the corrupt and unsound form of speaking in the plural number to a single person, you to one, instead of thou, contrary to the pure, plain, and single language of truth, thou to one, and you to more than one, which had always been used by God to men, and men to God, as well as one to another, from the oldest record of time till corrupt men, for corrupt ends, in later and corrupt times, to flatter, fawn, and work upon the corrupt nature in men, brought in that false and senseless way of speaking you to one, which has since corrupted the modern languages, and hath greatly debased the spirits and depraved the manners of men;—this evil custom I had been as forward in as others, and this I was now called out of and required to cease from.
Plenty of languages have a gender-neutral form of address: one that can be used for anyone. It serves a purpose, it fits a pattern, people are using it, and it doesn't even require extra logic in my natural language parser: I see no reason to call this sense ungrammatical, especially not when the others are accepted.
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¹: For a specific instance of the general person, 'one' and 'you' are used, with 'one' currently out of fashion: I personally prescribe 'one', but often find myself using 'you' anyway.
²: Upper-class English culture, anyway. Great Britain's got a dozen ethnic groups on it, more ways of speaking than you can shake a stick at, can't even make up its mind what a 'country' is, and don't get me started on the trade/invade/cold-war dynamic with what seems like the entirety of Western Europe. And then you've got religion on top of that: are we with the Pope? Are we against the Pope? Do we even care? Which prayer books are we using? Are we running out into the woods when the moon is full and yelling 'Diana' into the night? Is the priesthood male, or some 'third sex' – and if so, what (if anything) does that have to do with 'eunuchs'? And then there's historiography on top of that, because culture is affected by people's beliefs about what is and isn't traditional… No, it's much easier to stick with what the wealthy and powerful's letters and diaries and books say, than to try to work that whole mess out with basically no sources available.
³: This isn't strictly true: I've seen writing that used þorn ſimultaneously with 'it' for Hermaphroditus. Currently, 'it' seems to be exclusively for objects, dehumanising when used for people… except infants, where it's an acceptable gender-neutral personal, for some reason.
1. The changes you've outlined are all simplifications except the ones for non-binary, which as the Stallman essay linked above outlines, is a mess. Simultaneously more confusing, less accurate, less precise, sounds more clumsy, and takes more effort. Not a winning strategy (though calling people bigots got quite far for a while).
2. We know what a country is, we've created several.
3. We're not with the Pope and haven't been for nigh on 500 years now and won't be back.
4. Non-binary is a luxury belief[1]. It came directly out of universities and has been supported via people of a similar background in media and education sectors, so if we're wondering how the wealthy and powerful want us to speak, we need look no further than this. As the link states:
> Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.
5. There are no true human hermaphrodites as even those born with something akin to the other sex's genitalia have only been able to produce from one type, usually female. As with singular they, it is a misnomer and the medical profession prefers more accurate designation of disorder of sex development. Calling them it would seem dehumanising.
> Plenty of languages have a gender-neutral form of address: one that can be used for anyone. It serves a purpose, it fits a pattern, people are using it, and it doesn't even require extra logic in my natural language parser: I see no reason to call this sense ungrammatical, especially not when the others are accepted.
Putting the verb at the end of the sentence is grammatical in Japanese, that is not a reason for why it should be grammatical in English, any more than giving my television a female gender would be (French), or using capitals for every noun (German). I'm all for helpful innovations but as stated in point 1, this ain't that, or should that be they ain't they.
> the ones for non-binary, which as the Stallman essay linked above outlines, is a mess.
Exactly the same criticism applies to singular you, down the the example sentences. I would take Richard Stallman's criticism more seriously if he was a thou proponent. (Use whatever words you like for the generic person / unknown gender cases, but don't start othering people by using non-standard pronouns exclusively for them.)
It's a basic fact of life in many pre- / non-British Empire cultures – and even in modern-day cultures formerly of the Empire. If you mean the modern, 'western' ideas of non-binary gender, that's derived from the experiences of transgender people, and existed for decades before the academics picked up on it.
Virtue-signalling existing about something doesn't mean the thing is made up (see: carbon credits, corporate inclusivity). Your linked essay somewhat misses the point: belief in virtue-signalling is also a status symbol, as is name-dropping social psychology and evolutionary psychology in an argument, and I could easily rebut that essay in exactly the same way it rebuts the 'defund the police' movement (except, that wouldn't be intellectually honest: for all its central thesis is flawed, and its examples are misrepresented, it does describe a real phenomenon).
> that is not a reason for why it should be grammatical in English
If I may be pedantic for a moment: it's the same grammatical construction as things that are grammatical, so it is grammatical. That's not up for debate! Even "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is, per Noam Chomsky, a grammatically-correct sentence. What's in question is whether it's acceptable, to which I say the notion of acceptability is not how language works, and especially not how English works. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription for further discussion.
You can fight the good fight to bring back thou, no one is stopping you (ha), other than perhaps the good sense to realise no one wants it and, more importantly, appeals to hypocrisy or inconsistency are basic logical fallacies.
> > Non-binary is a luxury belief.
> It's a basic fact of life in many pre- / non-British Empire cultures – and even in modern-day cultures formerly of the Empire.
But not part of a Britain that has a literate population that's been through basic science at school, which still appears not to have been enough for teenagers, and curiously, university educated journalists and educators. What could tie those groups together?
Regardless, what's happening elsewhere in other languages is for the speakers of those places and languages to deal with.
> If you mean the modern, 'western' ideas of non-binary gender
Yes, I do. I don't live in 1550 nor in pre-modern Britain, hence, those time periods have no relevance to this discussion other than "things change".
> If I may be pedantic for a moment: it's the same grammatical construction as things that are grammatical, so it is grammatical. That's not up for debate!
You're arguing on the side of an innovation, of course it breaks grammar rules (and who claimed that Chomsky's sentence was not grammatical? Again irrelevant). The only thing worth writing in that whole text was “What's in question is whether it's acceptable”, and it isn't. Wouldn't it have been better to focus on that instead of chatting nonsense about borders that only Scots with a chip on their shoulders care about?
No, because it would expose the paucity of any good reason to accept this innovation. The idea that those who are against this are being prescriptive is funny, I'm not demanding that anyone use an innovation in language to refer to anyone else upon threat of punishment if they don't comply. Now that's not how English nor English culture should work.
> They ain't them. ;-)
Glad you're paying attention but I meant what I wrote, the joke doesn't work if I make it more grammatical ;-)
This is so far off-topic we might end up in our own debatable lands…
> People still didn't like it. His right to have these views, their right too.
Yes, the question here is who mixed their personal right to their views with their professional responsibilities. If Eich didn't, then it seems clear that everyone at Mozilla who objected to his appointment did. That wasn't the conversation that took place though.
The "professional responsibilities" in this case was being a good steward for Mozilla's products and the vision of products that preserved digital rights for its users. Not clear what this had to do with civil rights like gay marriage.
> The "professional responsibilities" in this case was being a good steward for Mozilla's products and the vision of products that preserved digital rights for its users. Not clear what this had to do with civil rights like gay marriage.
That's not all a CTO does. They also have "people" responsibilities.
As the then CTO, one of Eich's professional responsibilities was to lead the tech teams and individuals at Mozilla. The belief, among a significant proportion of Mozilla's employees, that he could not be trusted to put aside his opinions on civil rights when managing people, was what led to the opposition to his appointment.
> The belief, among a significant proportion of Mozilla's employees, that he could not be trusted to put aside his opinions on civil rights when managing people
A belief he couldn't be trusted based on what evidence, aside from them not liking his views on gay marriage?
