It is interesting to consider changing our use of pronouns, but if
we're not changing anything, is there any reason to cover pronouns in
the editorial guidelines at all? I don't see any confusion or
inconsistency related to them, and I expect any new player who has
given the rules even a cursory reading will pick up on the Spivak
pronouns. The shorter the guidelines are, the more likely people are
to read and follow them
On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 05:07, Gaelan Steele via agora-discussion
<agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote:
>
> This is a good point. Suggested reword: {
> The singular non-gendered pronoun is "e" in the nominative, and "em" in
> the accusative. Do not use "he/him/his," or "she/her/her,” or
> “they/them/their”
> as a singular pronoun when referring to a person of unknown gender.
> }
>
> Personally, I’m vaguely of the opinion that we should switch to they/them
> instead of Spivak in general. Our use of Spivak now feels like using Betamax
> in 1990—sure, it was probably better, but the other one won and it’s silly to
> keep doing our own thing. That being said, I know this is probably an
> unpopular opinion (and I know there are some reasonable arguments in favor of
> Spivak, such as support for legal persons).
>
> Gaelan
>
> > On Jan 27, 2020, at 8:04 PM, Tanner Swett via agora-discussion
> > <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 27, 2020, 18:43 Jason Cobb via agora-business <
> > agora-busin...@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> >
> >> [Informal title: "Pronouns"]
> >>
> >> {
> >>
> >> The singular non-gendered pronoun is "e" in the nominative, and "em" in
> >> the accusative. Do not use "they" as a singular pronoun. Do not use
> >> "he/him/his" or "she/her/her" as a singular pronoun when referring to a
> >> person of unknown gender.
> >>
> >> }
> >>
> >
> > I informally object. I agree that we should use e/em as the generic
> > third-person singular pronoun (as we have been doing for decades), but when
> > rules refer to specific individuals (which is uncommon but not all *that*
> > rare), there's no reason at all to proscribe using "they" for a particular
> > individual if that's the pronoun that they prefer to use in such contexts.
> >
> > —Warrigal
> >
> >>
>
