Liron comments on How to Not Lose an Argument - Less Wrong

109 Post author: Yvain 19 March 2009 01:07AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (409)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 March 2009 07:23:49PM 14 points [-]

I think I remember reading that the plural used to be conventional grammar and was then deliberately suppressed in favor of "he".

I use the plural. It grows on you surprisingly quickly and isn't at all obtrusive. Anyone who doesn't already have the info stored "Oh, Eliezer uses the plural" after reading my writings for months is a case in point thereof.

Comment author: Liron 20 March 2009 12:41:19AM 5 points [-]

Indeed! I pay attention both to gender pronouns and to Eliezer's writing patterns, and I never noticed this. (Eliezer_2000 used "ve" a lot though.)

I had previously decided on "he" in order to optimize for flow, but I am happy to accept this well-made point and switch to "they'.