Re:Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser
by jrockway on Thursday November 03, 2016 @11:56AM
(#12865065)
Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
Re:Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser
by JBReefer on Thursday November 03, 2016 @12:07PM
(#12865177)
I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions.
Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.
Re:Why a federal high-tech start-up is a money loser
by jrockway on Thursday November 03, 2016 @01:46PM
(#12866207)
So, go back to the beginning of the comment thread; it's about how a bot that only speaks English is "dystopian". English doesn't have gendered words, so we can quite easily fix the problem with almost no effort at all.
Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group.
That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.