From: Bagas Sanjaya Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:26:38 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] CodingGuidelines: recommend singular they Message-ID: In-Reply-To: On 16/06/21 12.06, Junio C Hamano wrote: > + - 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: > 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/ -- An old man doll... just what I always wanted! - Clara