The English pronouns he and she are gender-specific third-person personal pronouns.
The English pronoun they is an epicene (gender-neutral) third-person pronoun that can refer to plural antecedents of any gender and, under certain circumstances, to a singular antecedent that refers to a person.
While you are not strictly wrong, "he" carries multiple meanings (see below). The original commenter is clearly using one of the latter definitions.
1. used to refer to a man, boy, or male animal previously mentioned or easily identified.
2. used to refer to a person or animal of unspecified sex
3. any person
"They" is more modern, if a little awkward in some cases, but the english language is fluid and thus "he", alongside "they", remains perfectly acceptable for those who wish to use it in that capacity. The message was able to be conveyed, which is the only requirement of the english language.
> "They" may be more modern, if a little awkward in some cases, but the english language is fluid and thus "he", alongside "they", remains a perfectly acceptable for those who wish to use it in that capacity.
Well. I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3). But would love to read them, as this is a topic of great interest to me. Especially as they go against everything I did learn during my time studying the history of languages (German and English).
I know of language fluidity and I know of a time around the 14th century where "he" was in some contexts used in a more gender neutral way (and even that is debated nowadays). And even then the neutral "they" (singular and plural) was also in use in cases that were clearly gender neutral.
So looking back into the development and the history of the English language I cannot find (or recollect) indicators for your way of reading "he" as being totally fine and acceptable and really gender neutral (and not just a sign of a more patriarchal society).
Talking about fluidity of language. At least in the last some years there has been a development of "he" being incivil and assuming and therefore should probably not be used in a gender neutral way. Also that other alternatives would be more civil and unassuming regarding others taking part in our conversations.
> The message was able to be conveyed, which is the only requirement of the english language.
Well technically speaking that is true. But aren't there always human beings part of every conversation? And imho our wetware isn't a purely logic parser for information. We are flawed and our flaws should be considered when trying to communicate. Esp. if we try to get an idea across and not wanting to "hurt"/alienate others.
We have different "ways" we process information. The purely informational part of a message is but one of them. Ignoring the others might just hinder our arguments/ideas from getting the recognition they deserve.
> I am not sure of your sources for your statements (1 to 3).
The dictionary, as provided by Google in this case. Although you are likely to find similar definitions in any dictionary. The usage, even if falling out of fashion, is still common enough to be recorded.
> Well technically speaking that is true. But aren't there always human beings part of every conversation? And imho our wetware isn't a purely logic parser for information.
Which is fine. The original comment provided enough information to indicate that this person was referring to the original article, which reveals that the author is female. Even if you accidentally parsed "he" as referring to the male gender at first, the context surrounding the comment would quickly clarify that misunderstanding and highlight that the comment was written in a gender-neutral form. That "wetware" you refer to makes humans particularly great at forming these connections between disjointed sets of information.
> Even if you accidentally parsed "he" as referring to the male gender at first, the context surrounding the comment would quickly clarify that misunderstanding and reveal that the comment was written in a gender-neutral form.
I don't see why it isn't just as likely for someone, like the person who corrected the use of "he," to decide from context simply that the poster was mistaken about the person's gender, and to treat it like they'd treat any factual mistake. Language is about conveying messages to people, and part of the message that was received was that ratsimihah believed the author to be a man. Grammatically acceptable or not, using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun here introduced confusion.
The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way, even offering the use of "they" in its place, most likely as gender-neutral "he" is offensive to some.
However, english does not concern itself with what is or is not offensive. That is entirely up to the user to decide.
> Grammatically acceptable or not, using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun here introduced confusion.
That gender-neutral "they" was suggested as a suitable replacement here, I don't think that is the case. The fact that we can find another word that unambiguously removes gender from the subject means that gender is irrelevant to the comment in question entirely, leaving no room for confusion with respect to what the message is about, no matter what pronoun is used.
> The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way and even offered the use of "they"
Their first suggestion was to use the correct gender-specific pronoun, and then they said that alternately a gender-neutral one could have been used. I don't think it was understood as gender-neutral.
> The fact that we can find another word that unambiguously removes gender from the subject means that gender is irrelevant to the comment in question entirely
Sure, but if it's read as gender-specific then it's still a factual mistake. Would you be so defensive about someone correcting a wrong, but not critically important, date?
Regardless, it remains that gender-neutral "they" was considered a suitable replacement, thereby indicating that gender was irrelevant to the subject of the comment all along. The gender correction seems to be more about pedantry than confusion. "They" could not possibly work in the comment if gender was a required part of understanding it.
> Regardless, it remains that gender-neutral "they" was considered a suitable replacement, thereby indicating that gender was irrelevant to the subject of the comment all along.
Of course it was, as specifically noted in said corrective comment. Your comment could either use the author's actual gender or not involve gender at all./
> The gender correction seems to be more about pedantry than confusion.
No, the gender correction was about getting the author's gender wrong.
> Your comment could either use the author's actual gender or not involve gender at all.
To be clear, I was not the one who originally used gender-neutral "he" over "she".
> No, the gender correction was about getting the author's gender wrong.
Due to overzealous pedantry, or a misunderstanding of what "he" means in english? Understandably not everyone comes here with english as their first language, so I can appreciate that the word may be not fully understood by some.
Some people might consider it pedantic to insist to someone who was confused by a choice of wording, and offered a less potentially confusing alternative, that actually it's fine because it's technically correct, regardless of how people understand it when they read it.
Absolutely it is. Nothing wrong with pedantry per-se, but with respect to this particular discussion it helps to understand the motivation to understand if the person is not clear on what "he" means, which we can help correct to prevent future confusion when future comments use gender-neutral "he", or is just trying to have some fun, which we can safely ignore.
> Would you be so defensive about someone correcting a wrong, but not critically important, date?
First of all, the usage of "he" is not technically wrong.
I do not know if there is a great date analogy here, but perhaps "tomorrow" carries enough ambiguity across timezones that we can work with it. If I say tomorrow is Tuesday, but you are in a timezone where tomorrow is Wednesday, then you're fine to say that tomorrow is Wednesday, and I'll chime in to say that tomorrow is also technically Tuesday. To continue to argue that the original comment shouldn't have used "tomorrow" as it is too ambiguous to understand is fine, but given that you say it is not critically important, I'm not sure what there is to gain?
If, by "tomorrow", I mean Tuesday and you think I'm talking about Wednesday, does it really matter when it is just a passing fact and not something particularly relevant to the overall message?
> The person who corrected the original commenter seems to recognized that "he" was being used in a gender-neutral way
No, the person who corrected the original comment (that would be me) assumed the comment's writer (that would be you) had gotten TFA's gender wrong.
Hence 1. providing the author's correct gender, and 2. noting that gender-agnostic comments avoid this sort of issues when gender isn't specifically required for understanding.
> most likely as gender-neutral "he" is offensive to some.
No, because "he" isn't any more gender-neutral than "she" and may be a mistake of the commenter with respect to the author's gender. Following which you decided to blow a gasket.
> That gender-neutral "they" was suggested as a suitable replacement here, I don't think that is the case.
Precisely. The common usage of "they" is more modern than "he". "He" is considered quite outdated as it has fallen out of fashion. However, english doesn't care about fashion. "He" and "they" remain correct in this scenario. English allows you to use any combination of letters/sounds that you want as long as the message is conveyed, and, as shown in your original comment, "he" perfectly conveyed to you exactly who the original commenter was referring to.
English is a fluid language. The original commenter could have even correctly used 'Buhurah' instead of 'He' if most people would understand that it meant the author of the article. Although, unlike 'He', which is commonly used to refer to people of all genders to the point that it is recorded in modern dictionaries as such, 'Buhurah' is likely to leave people confused as to the subject matter.
The fact that you were able to successfully recognize that the person who used 'He' was specifically referring to Julia Evans without having to question that person means that the message was conveyed quite succinctly and the subject was perfectly understood, which is correct from the perspective of the english language.
"They" has become more common in contemporary usage, I agree, but the fluidity of the english language allows for any of the above. "He" is still common enough that the dictionary still records "he" as being gender neutral. There is really no wrong answer here as far as english is concerned.
As, in fact, they have. "They" was the gender-neutral singular pronoun in English for a long, long time. The idea of "he" as the "neutral" pronoun was forced onto the language only within the last couple of centuries. And now "they" can be, and is being, forced back.
Exactly. English is fluid and you can correctly use any word you want, as long as the message is accurately conveyed. And in this case it provably was, as the person I replied to specifically recognized that the original commenter was referring to Julia Evans when using he. So what is the issue here?
The issue is the original commenter did not use "he" in the sense of "a person of indeterminate or unknown gender". The original commenter very clearly used "he" in the sense of "I assume all authors of programming-related articles on HN are male".
Attempting to retrofit a "well it's OK to use it gender-neutral" explanation onto that doesn't work. And trying to enforce a gender-neutral "he" is hopefully going to stop working in the near future.
That seems like a pretty big leap. The original commenter left one short sentence. There is not enough information to conclude anything about intent. The context of the comment does not rely on gender at all. In fact, I see nothing in the article to suggest the person's gender in the first place. The only hint I can find on the whole page of the person's gender is the name "Julia" in the header, which, not personally knowing this person, could just as easily be a man's name as a woman's. It is reasonable to stick to generally accepted gender neutral terms, like "he" or "they", here.
Although, for what it is worth, even if this person is a man, I see no harm in using "she" as well. It's just plain not pertinent information to get the proper gender here. The message that it is referring to the original author would still be conveyed, and that is the only thing that really matters. English really doesn't care about anything else.
It's not a big leap, and no amount of faux-innocent obtuseness will make it be one.
Also I am unaware of any culture in which "Julia" is in common usage as a masculine personal name. Being a modern Romance-language version of a Latin-derived name, the "a" ending gives it away quite plainly ("Julio" would be the masculine, or "Julius" in the original).
> Also I am unaware of any culture in which "Julia" is in common usage as a masculine personal name.
However, it is very common to use "he" in a gender neutral way. So common, in fact, that the modern dictionary includes gender neutral definitions for the word. If we cannot make assumptions about the usage of common words defined by the dictionary, how can we begin to do the same for names of people? Julia, even if always assigned to females, may simply be a name given at birth that does not represent this person's current gender.
She. Or they, which I recommend when the subject's gender is irrelevant even if you know of it.