Re: [PATCH 4/4] CodingGuidelines: recommend singular they

From: Derrick Stolee <stolee@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 7, 2021, 19:05 UTC
Message-ID: <a66ed39c-926d-d887-526b-dc0f9c049085@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq4ke9v6za.fsf@gitster.g>

On 6/7/2021 2:56 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> "Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> To futher justify singular "they" as an acceptable grammatical concept,
>> I include the careful research of brian m. carlson who collected their
>> thoughts on this matter [2] (lightly edited):
> 
> The use of "their" here I found going overboard, given that (1) it
> is outside the topic of this change, where you are not referring to
> a non-specific person, and (2) as Brian's siglines indicate, the
> preferred pronouns for the particular person you are referring to is
> "he/him or they/them".

I'll admit that I was trying to be instructive in my commit message whenever possible, so specifically chose that option among brian's preferred pronouns. If I misinterpreted the purpose of "he/him or they/them" then I will absolutely change this instance.

For my part, I did run this message by brian before sending the patch, to be sure that my use of the quote was appropriate. (Also, I'm purposefully lower-casing "brian m. carlson" to match chosen email signatures, but perhaps that is also incorrect?)

Thanks, -Stolee