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Comment by feikname | Hacker News Reader

> Every single software engineer fell in love with coding because she made a small, useful program early on and was hooked.

Totally off-topic to this article: I've seen more and more the use of she as a demonsrative pronoum rather than a personal one (e.g. moon as her) and as actually a gender-neutral personal pronoum for people and animals, specially for generalized cases.

Is this "valid" formal english or is it a trend?

Also, if anyone knows the name of using "her" like this please tell me, I'd like to know more about this.

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It's a response to the use of "he" as the default pronoun. "he" is gendered and basically everywhere, which means that many people consider its use sexist. Their response is to use "she" in an effort to swing the gendered-pronoun usage towards 50/50. Other people choose to use the gender-neutral "they", which gives grammar-focused people an mild aneurysm.

Is that because “they” refers generally to a plural? I’ve started using it to refer to singular people as a neutral reference but haven’t had anyone attempt to correct it.

It is acceptable to use 'they' as singular when referring to 'a person.'

Works: "When a person reads, they learn"

Doesn't work: "When Jim reads, they learn"

It also works for other non-proper nouns like

"When a knight enters the room, they kneel". I think this is mostly an artifact of implying "When knights enter the room, they kneel."

I feel like this also works: "When the author wrote x, they were really saying y".

I'm sure there's some explanation for it, but it's generally okay to use 'they' in the singular and anyone that disagrees is some snobbish weirdo. It clearly conveys what one means which makes it suitable for use, IMO.

I've always liked s/he but don't see that in much usage.

Without wading too deeply into the topic, I can say that I have only really seen it as a trend among developer documentation and writing, as a means of fostering I gender inclusiveness.

I have yet to really see this in other writing amongst stereotypically gendered professional writing. As for non-people, it is a bit more common; the most obvious one in English I can think of is both boats and open waters.

I know that, at least in the 3rd Edition, D&D consistently used she as the default pronoun. I don't know that I've seen is consistently anywhere else.

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