Re: [PATCH 1/4] Documentation: use singular they when appropriate

From: Derrick Stolee <stolee@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 10, 2021, 18:30 UTC
Message-ID: <790688e5-6816-9837-85e7-2fdbbdf24169@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <87czsu98ar.fsf@vps.thesusis.net>

On 6/9/2021 2:47 PM, Phillip Susi wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> 
> Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget wrote:
>>> From: Derrick Stolee <dstolee@microsoft.com>
>>> --- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
>>> +++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
>>> @@ -373,7 +373,7 @@ If you like, you can put extra tags at the end:
>>>  . `Acked-by:` says that the person who is more familiar with the area
>>>    the patch attempts to modify liked the patch.
>>>  . `Reviewed-by:`, unlike the other tags, can only be offered by the
>>> -  reviewer and means that she is completely satisfied that the patch
>>> +  reviewer and means that they are completely satisfied that the patch
> 
> Say wait a minute.  If that is a "singular they", then why was the "is"
> changed to "are"?  I think that belies the fact that there is no such
> thing as a "singular they".

Singular "they" works the same as singular "you". For example:

	...means that _you are_ completely satisfied...

Singular "you" had a similar backlash in the 1660s as singular "they" is having in this thread, but singular "you" has lasted (and we use "thou" only to signify someone using old-timey language).

There is more of this in [1] and [2]

[1] https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E2%80%93V_distinction#English

Thanks, -Stolee