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A comment on Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub. Parent comment

Re:Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub by blindmute on Friday April 01, 2022 @07:18PM (#30884297)
"They" is not a gender neutral singular pronoun to begin with, so the entire concept is wrong
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Re:Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub by woodruffw on Friday April 01, 2022 @11:02PM (#30885523)
Sure it is. If it's good enough for the Bard, I think it's good enough for you and me[1].

[1]: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-chronicles-history-gender-neut...

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Re:Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub by blindmute on Saturday April 02, 2022 @09:28AM (#30888102)
Merriam-Webster chose "they" as its 2019 Word of the Year based on the number of dictionary lookups, and the singular "they" was added to its online dictionary in September.

In other words, the dictionary added it 3 years ago due to political pressure. It's never been correct English, and it still isn't.

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Re:Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub by woodruffw on Saturday April 02, 2022 @10:46AM (#30888663)
“Correct” English is a very silly thing to get hung up on. I’ll repeat myself: if it’s correct enough for Dickens and Shakespeare, the two of us can probably suffer it.

(I’ve also never heard any English dictionary make a claim of linguistic completeness, so “it’s not in Merriam-Webster” doesn’t strike me as an important standard.)

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Re:Inclusive Coding Bot on GitHub by at_a_remove on Thursday April 07, 2022 @11:00AM (#30945314)
It isn't an important standard for really obscure words. However, if Merriam-Webster forgot something like "him," you would look askance.

We both know this. Why pretend?

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