Eric Pruitt wrote:
On Fri, Jun 07, 2024 at 06:03:22PM -0500, Jacob Bachmeyer via Gnupg-users wrote:
Strictly, "their" is plural in English
No, it is not. "They" and "their" have been used as gender-neutral,
singular pronouns for centuries. Even if that wasn't the case, it's
widely accepted in modern colloquial usage.
Colloquial usage is /highly/ inappropriate in a reference that needs to
be understood by people for whom English is a second language and who
may have limited English proficiency. Few English-as-a-foreign-language
courses should be expected to mention singular "they", so its use is
inappropriate in documentation.
We can't just ossify the
language because some people don't like that a word can have multiple,
context-sensitive meanings.
Clarity is important here; if we can avoid requiring the reader to
understand context-sensitive meanings, we should.
"They/their" isn't even unique in that
manner when it comes to pronouns; [...]
While it can have that meaning, it is still wrong in this context: we
have "...you can be sure that the key really does belong to him..." just
before the typo, therefore, the correct correction is to say "the key"
or "his key", but the former is more specific that we are talking about
the same key in both places, while the latter could describe one key
that you are certain belongs to someone and /another/ key (possibly also
belonging to the same person) that you have signed.
(It might also be interesting that I made (and fixed) the exact same
typo ("they" instead of "the") while typing <<"the key">> in the above
paragraph.)
The broader context is:
[...] a correspondent's key is validated by personally checking his
key's fingerprint and then signing his public key with your private
key. By personally checking the fingerprint you can be sure that the
key really does belong to him, and since you have signed they key, you
can be sure to detect any tampering with it in the future.
This suggests a better correction: "...since you have signed *that* key..."
-- Jacob
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