Damn English and its lack of gender non-specific pronouns!
Seriously, though... what is the implication that I am missing? What is the point of bringing up the CEO's pay? Should it be government mandated, is that what you all believe?
Seriously, though... what is the implication that I am missing? What is the point of bringing up the CEO's pay? Should it be government mandated, is that what you all believe?
Given the complete failure to achieve not only value for shareholders, but their own fucking stated goals, it seems reasonable to question exactly what the executive team is paid and why.
Whether the CEO is paid $1.6 million, $100K, or $16 million, it doesn't really effect IBM's bottom line much.
I remember getting points off of papers for misusing "they" in a singular context.
So it sounds weird to me too. We were always taught that "he" is a gender-neutral singular as needed.
I was taught to use the horribly awkward "he or she" (his or hers, etc) or alternatively to restructure to actually refer to plural. e.g. Instead of "A software engineer should test his code" use "Software engineers should test their code".
I'm glad the "neutral they" is catching on.
Part of the problem with it being used in singular and plural context is that it's possible to use it in an ambiguous way where the ambiguity comes from the lack of enough context to differentiate between plural or singular. Separate words would remove this.
Though admittedly it's a corporate idiom that has passed its best-before date. Kind of like "folks".
It sounds weird, and incorrect, to a native English-speaker like me, particularly when 'they' and 'their' are used more than once or maybe twice in a sentence.
If you don't know whether someone is male or female, use male pronouns until told otherwise. That's the rule in English, and it works.
The same question applies with a CEO, which the shareholders, presumably, voted in. They could have put in someone else, maybe someone who, gasp, charges more, to run a $100 billion company.
I don't understand this attitude, as if "the powers that be"/"the Man"/"the 1%" put the CEO there and therefore it's all their fault that you don't make as much as them.
Aiee! Jesus, downvoters, dissent from the party line isn't tolerated, is it?
These downvotes have nothing to do with a "party line" but with your comments being unsubstantive. Comments on HN need to be both civil and substantive.
Also, it breaks the rules to go on about downvotes in HN comments. You've done this often in previous threads too; please don't. We have not one but two guidelines about it:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neu...