Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] CodingGuidelines: recommend singular they

From: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 16, 2021, 09:26 UTC
Message-ID: <ebb018a4-5d97-6cd9-9d9f-92095f1cf44d@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqbl86qtyf.fsf@gitster.g>

On 16/06/21 12.06, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> +  - If you still need to refer to an example person that is
> +    third-person singular, you may resort to "singular they" to avoid
> +    "he/she/him/her", e.g.
> +
> +      A contributor asks their upstream to pull from them.
> + > +    Note that this sounds ungrammatical and unnatural to those who
> +    learned English as a second language in some parts of the world.
>

I'm also confused and found that using singular they may sound odd. So IMO either avoid referring to third-person singular (gendered pronouns) or write using plural actors. In the case above it should be `Contributors ask their upstream to pull from them, potentially with reviews`.

A prime example of rewriting using plural actors is in "doc: avoid using the gender of other people" patch [1], which said the diff:

Show 15 quoted lines

> diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
> index 55287d72e0..3e215f4d80 100644
> --- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
> +++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
> @@ -373,9 +373,8 @@ 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
> -  is ready for application.  It is usually offered only after a
> -  detailed review.
> +  reviewers themselves when they are completely satisfied with the
> +  patch after a detailed analysis.
>  . `Tested-by:` is used to indicate that the person applied the patch
>    and found it to have the desired effect.

I'm OK with using they in plural context, but not as singular they.

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/20210611202819.47077-2-felipe.contreras@gmail.com/

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