Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!us.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Gene Wirchenko Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: java software naming question Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:22:00 -0800 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 33 Message-ID: <7tdpe899vdio5rc27sl5apsr5oeg1c67j6@4ax.com> References: <396e3ff0-2a44-4d8b-917c-3b9205a567a6@googlegroups.com> <__OdnU7WI-raB3HNnZ2dnUVZ_sidnZ2d@earthlink.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="95789bcd602b4527561dc0cb1c85cae5"; logging-data="22861"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/Lgq5kNSAZXGDxwFiQy4MMWxfkKsgVtxo=" X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 4.2/32.1118 Cancel-Lock: sha1:dteDYObCVQwANdmph2WZG+hFWDU= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:21230 On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:14:31 -0800, Patricia Shanahan wrote: >On 1/8/2013 8:47 AM, Gene Wirchenko wrote: >> On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:22:41 -0800, Roedy Green >.. >>> English is beginning to use "they" as a singular gender-unspecified >>> pronoun. Unless some replacement singular catches on, the number >> >> It has been used for centuries. > >Also, I distinctly remember being taught in school not to use "they" for >gender-neutral singular. Likewise. >Native speakers of a language learn its real rules as infants. For >example, consider the subject-verb-object order of a typical English >declarative sentence. I didn't need to be taught it in school. I did >have to learn that Latin has a different default order. And they get broken, too. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, ..." is not your typical imperative sentence. >Rules native speakers only learn in school are very fragile. If schools >stopped teaching people not to use "they" for gender-neutral singular it >would become the norm in at most a generation. It pretty much is already. Sincerely, Gene Wirhenko