dfranke didn’t make a “correct” assumption, he made an “unnecessary” assumption.
It’s not completely unnecessary, it’s grammatically more convenient to use a specific gender. It’s a question of priorities in deciding what to say, not of factual knowledge. You would be incorrect to argue that no a priori knowledge about your gender exists, or that it doesn’t say “probably male”.
If someone wants to avoid specifying gender, ey have options.
Spivak pronouns look weird and are hard to read for most people who aren’t used to using them. Just use the singular they. Much simpler and has been used colloquially for centuries.
Edit: This seems to be just way too much drama. Can we all just agree that English is a sucky language and that no matter what we do we’re going to be using some kludge and just get along?
I got used to Spivak pronouns in less than a day. People generally are capable of learning new vocabulary, if we don’t indulge their excuse that they aren’t used to it.
It’s not completely unnecessary, it’s grammatically more convenient to use a specific gender. It’s a question of priorities in deciding what to say, not of factual knowledge. You would be incorrect to argue that no a priori knowledge about your gender exists, or that it doesn’t say “probably male”.
If someone wants to avoid specifying gender, ey has options.
Spivak pronouns look weird and are hard to read for most people who aren’t used to using them. Just use the singular they. Much simpler and has been used colloquially for centuries.
Edit: This seems to be just way too much drama. Can we all just agree that English is a sucky language and that no matter what we do we’re going to be using some kludge and just get along?
I got used to Spivak pronouns in less than a day. People generally are capable of learning new vocabulary, if we don’t indulge their excuse that they aren’t used to it.
You can learn to use new vocabulary, but this is not the same thing as adjusting aesthetic perception of its use.
It’s “ey has”.
Conjugation fixed.