Re: grammar usage (was: Re: [PATCH 4/4] services: openssh: Add 'subsystems' option.)

[ng0]

John Darrington transcribed 2.9K bytes:
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 11:08:04AM +0000, ng0 wrote:
>      John Darrington transcribed 1.1K bytes:
>      > On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 08:45:27PM +0000, ng0 wrote:
>      > 
>      >      ps Cl??ment: 'them'/'they' are pronouns if you don't know the 
> gender and/or
>      >      prefered pronoun of a person :)
>      > 
>      > 
>      > ... according to some. -  but most linguists, and many orators (the 
> president of 
>      > the Free Software Foundation being one of them) consider this to be a 
> misuse of 
>      > the English language and refuse to (mis)use these words for such a 
> purpose.
>      > 
>      > J'
>      >      
>      > 
>      > -- 
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>      > 
>      
>      You keep mentioning this every time it comes up. It's annoying, really.
>      Linguists aren't the central authority of a language.
> 
> 1.  Yes.  I have mentioned it several times when the subject has been brought 
> up,
> and I see no reason why I shouldn't do so the next time it is brought up.
> 
> 2.  If you find it annoying then - DON'T BRING IT UP.
> 
>
> 3.  You are right that linguists are not an authority - I never claimed that
> so please don't make a strawman out of that.
> 
>      If it's bothering you that much, this is on topic as it is in the
>      documentation of Guix, and there are several ways to express gender
>      neutral pronouns in some languages. 
> 
> 4.  So when using those languages I will be all in favour of people using
> the correct word for that language.
> 
>       "According to linguists" what a
>      larger group of people in Germany uses is also a misuse of the language.
>      Do they care? No.
> 
> 5.  That is unfortunate.  As a resident in Germany whose first language is
> not German, sometimes I make mistakes when speaking German.  When I do - and
> when people take the time to correct me - then I am always grateful to them.
> Conversly, I often correct Germans who make mistakes in their English.  Most
> appreciate the help - some, like you say, don't care.  But guess what: Das ist
> mir Scheissegal!
> 
> J'
> 
> 
> -- 
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> 

Respecting people is more important than correct grammar.

My choice of pronoun for myself is they/them. I'm not picking strawman
arguments here, all I wanted to express is that it is impolite and
disrespectful against everybody to keep correcting them.
Especially if english is your native language.