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taryneast comments on How to Not Lose an Argument - Less Wrong
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I'm glad you brought that up.
I've thought about this a few times, and I agree with you that it promotes sexism and is bad, but I just really hate using the phrases "he or she" every time I have to use a pronoun. A sentence like "A rationalist should ensure he or she justifies his or her opinion to himself or herself" is just too awkward to understand. And I am too much of a grammar purist to use "them" as a singular.
I used to use the gender-neutral pronoun "ze", but people told me they didn't understand it or didn't like it or thought it sounded stupid. And I tried using "she" as the default for a while, but people kept getting confused because they weren't expecting it, and trying to figure out where I'd mentioned a female.
I'm willing to accept whatever the common consensus is here. Maybe Less Wrong-ers are open-minded enough to accept "ze" where the average reader isn't.
(I've heard some people here use "ve" a few times, but from the context I gathered it was more of a way to refer to aliens/AIs/transhumans than a normal gender-neutral pronoun. Is this true?)
Yes - and this is the problem. People shouldn't think that a female pronoun is weird... just because it's female. ...and you shouldn't be afraid of using it just because people might think it unusual and get confused for all of two seconds.
If you, and the other more post-prolific and respected members of the community used female pronouns more frequently (ie on average: as often as male ones) then eventually it would become commonplace and people would eventually figure it out.... that it's just a pronoun. Just like the other one... only female.
Alternatively, a lot of people these days are just fine with "they"/"them".
Yes we have twisted English into a way it never was used before and it sounds weird to those of us "brought up better"... but this is what happens with languages.
Especially English.
I'm sure I could go through your last post and pick out half a dozen things that, in their time, were considered weird and "not correct English"... until everyone that used to hate them died off and it became just part of common language.
AFAICT, it's currently the most widely-accepted gender-neutral pronoun. You can fight the tide... or not. :)