Re: [HACKERS] pgsql: Use gender-neutral language in documentation

Oh, good! We're actually going to have this argument? Even though I said I
don't care what you do?

On 22 September 2015 at 15:11, Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:

> On 09/22/2015 09:25 AM, Geoff Winkless wrote:
>
>> If someone sends me a document that uses "their" in a singular usage, I
>> will think that person is lazy. That will continue to be the case, whether
>> people tell me that it's accepted usage or not.
>
>
> You can think that if you like,

​Thanks!​ That's a great relief to me, as I'm sure you can imagine.

> but it's not even remotely true.

​You just stated that the reason you don't want to use the plural form I
suggested is because it's too hard/time-consuming. That does suggest you
accept that it's a valid solution but you're too lazy to use it.​

> It's a deliberate choice to use a new, perfectly reasonable and now widely
> accepted style of which you disapprove, but it's not lazy.
>

​That's your opinion; my opinion remains otherwise. It's not "perfectly
reasonable" to abuse the plural because some 1960s feminazis either
misunderstood or didn't like the fact that (because of history) in English
the gender-neutral singular happens to also be the male singular.

Happily for me, I can continue to write documents in a grammatically
correct way, and no-one will read them and think I'm a grammar-nazi (or
obstinate, or old-fashioned or whatever) because unless they're
specifically looking for it no-one will notice that I'm avoiding the
contentious usage altogether. On the other hand, there _will_ be a (perhaps
significant) proportion of people who read your documents and think that
you're incapable of writing a grammatically correct sentence.

Geoff