Re: [PATCH 4/4] CodingGuidelines: recommend singular they

From: "brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
To: Derrick Stolee <stolee@gmail.com>
Cc: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>,
	Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>,
	git@vger.kernel.org, jrnieder@gmail.com, emilyshaffer@google.com,
	Derrick Stolee <derrickstolee@github.com>,
	Derrick Stolee <dstolee@microsoft.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/4] CodingGuidelines: recommend singular they
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2021 21:34:49 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <YMKFeZdwD/BSeKmx@camp.crustytoothpaste.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <a66ed39c-926d-d887-526b-dc0f9c049085@gmail.com>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1835 bytes --]

On 2021-06-07 at 19:05:19, Derrick Stolee wrote:
> On 6/7/2021 2:56 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> > "Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
> > 
> >> To futher justify singular "they" as an acceptable grammatical concept,
> >> I include the careful research of brian m. carlson who collected their
> >> thoughts on this matter [2] (lightly edited):
> > 
> > The use of "their" here I found going overboard, given that (1) it
> > is outside the topic of this change, where you are not referring to
> > a non-specific person, and (2) as Brian's siglines indicate, the
> > preferred pronouns for the particular person you are referring to is
> > "he/him or they/them".
> 
> I'll admit that I was trying to be instructive in my commit message
> whenever possible, so specifically chose that option among brian's
> preferred pronouns. If I misinterpreted the purpose of "he/him or
> they/them" then I will absolutely change this instance.

The intended meaning is that either is fine, whichever the speaker
prefers.  Most people do use he/him for me, probably because most people
are more comfortable doing that, but either option is equally
acceptable.

> For my part, I did run this message by brian before sending the patch,
> to be sure that my use of the quote was appropriate. (Also, I'm
> purposefully lower-casing "brian m. carlson" to match chosen email
> signatures, but perhaps that is also incorrect?)

Also correct.  I typically lowercase my name, and I prefer it that way.
For legal purposes, at least in the locales which are relevant to me,
case is not considered important, and most legal documents scream my
name in uppercase.  But when I have an option, I prefer lowercase when
that's possible.
-- 
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 262 bytes --]