User talk:Anne onnimous

April 2024

Hello, I'm Sink Cat. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions to Lord Chancellor have been undone because they did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Teahouse or the Help desk. Thanks. Sink Cat (talk) 21:33, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Why? Anne onnimous (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't speak for Sink Cat (talk · contribs) but perhaps I can answer the "why" question. People are not all male. Historically it was appropriate to refer to people of unknown gender as "he" or "man", etc. Furthermore, the use of "they" was predominantly plural. However, these days many people consider it mean to deliberately change gender-neutral terms for people of unknown gender to gender-specific terms. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 17:13, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Lord Chancellors can be female, as was shown by Liz Truss' appointment in 2016. During her time as Lord Chancellor, the title "Lord" was still used, thus signifying that a "Lord" can be female as well. Because of this, we should use gender-neutral pronouns instead of strictly male ones.

The relevant MOS section can be found here.

Sink Cat (talk) 18:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

'Their' may be gender-neutral, or rather gender-all-inclusive, but it is always plural and in this case therefore grammatically incorrect. If you want to go to the trouble of writing his/her each time, instead of his, be my guest.

Perhaps a compromise could be to use 'his/her' on first mention and 'his' thereafter. Anne onnimous (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. The word "their" (or "they", etc.) is not exclusively plural. Historical note: "you" (and "your", "yours", "yourselves") was exclusively plural, with the singular being "thou" ("thy", "thine", "thyself"). It changed. Now we say "you are helpful" with the seemingly plural "you" and the seemingly plural "are" even when we are talking to one person. "They" / "their" is the same. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 20:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)