On Dec 4, 2013, at 1:58 PM, Matt <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 1:54 PM, // ravi <[email protected]> wrote:
> are you really saying that someone, who could put together full,
> grammatically correct, well constructed paragraphs of English here on the
> list and in that particular GitHub message, found a gender-neutrality change
> to be trivial *because* he found the English involved (the words “he” and
> “they”) foreign and ambiguous/confusing?
>
> Ben posted exactly why he did what he did:
> https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568172
>
Matt, thank you for the pointer. Ben’s very well written note contains this
line:
"To me as a non-native speaker, the difference between 'him' and 'them' seems
academic”.
There are two ways I read that:
(1) Ben is implying that the difference between the usage of “him” and “them”
in this context is specific to the language and its native speakers. That is
not true. There is no special meaning to these words that native speakers are
privy to. The difference is not linguistic, it is [socio]political. And one
does not need native speaking ability to discern that. If I were to translate
the words into other gendered languages that I know, the political concern
would remain. And as a non-Western speaker/user of English (which for many
implies I am a non-native speaker), I find the commit message and the change
clear: the committer writes that he is changing a gendered word to a
non-gendered one, and in the 21st century, the intent seems clear enough: the
committer is saying he does not want the docs to imply male as the default
human sex.
(2) Ben is stating that he did not and does not at all see the [socio]political
goal of gender neutrality, but instead thought/thinks that the committer
changed the text for stylistic or grammatical reasons apparent only to native
speakers. Considering the measured tone of the rest of his message, I am happy
to accept that version (assuming that’s what he even means). However, I would
have hoped it had given him pause to wonder aloud why such a change was made.
IMHO, Isaac’s override should have been the appropriate end of the affair.
Implying the guy is an asshole or sexist, or withdrawing as he did from the
project due to the heated accusations of a few, are all regrettable follow-ups.
—ravi
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