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Comment by mproud | Hacker News Reader

A very modern convention is now using “they/their” when a person may not be aware of someone’s preferred pronoun. And even still, I have also seen people abandon gendered pronouns entirely.

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It's also a very old method. In fact, he/she is a later evolution of the English language. "He/his" used to be more equivalent to "it/its". It wasn't until ~15th century that the modern "he/him" and "she/her" fully evolved. "They/them" meanwhile was in full use by the 14th century

No one speaks in middle english. Dead language rules and customs are irrelevant to modern language norms.

People once walketh befide their mules, but now we gots lambos

And yet, pronoun ragers cleave to Olde Anglishe in an attempte to rectifye Ye langge. Sadge.

This train of thought makes no sense. The fact that something originated in Old English doesn't at all mean it's dead. He/She also originated in Old English, just a little later. Should I make fun of people using he/him, she/her pronouns because they're "clinging to Olde Anglishe"? lol

No one made that claim.

Your comment is non sequitor

Using they/them as a neutral pronoun is not dead and never died...

Ah, "neutral"

Non-binary people tend to prefer the they/their pronoun too.

It’s also just far easier to use a plural pronoun to refer to a singular person to reflect the idea that you’re talking about their whole persona, brand, work, etc… and not just specifically the human being, IMO.

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