Re: Neutral language in W3C specifications

On 30/07/2020 05:03, Ivan Herman wrote:
> 
>>
>> Doesn't lose anything if it becomes:
>>
>> "Alex is a developer who uses SVG as part of their job..."

I wasn't explicitly aware of the idea of using a given name that is 
widely used for both genders; nice idea! When translated, it may be 
difficult to do the same in all languages, though. But then, neutral 
language has other problems in other languages, too.

>> There are times when the gender of the person in a user story is important, but in the context of W3C I can't think of one that applies to technical standards!
>>
> 
> i must admit that for a non-native English speaker the usage of the plural form as a gender-neutral pronoun sounds extremely strange in this case. I know it is coming to the fore but I am worried it would create lots of confusion. (It is certainly a usage that goes against my own English training.)

As another non-native English speaker, I must admit that a few years 
ago, I was also quite surprised to see such usages. For non-native 
speakers, it doesn't help that there is centuries-old practice, because 
we learn (moderately) modern English with (moderately) modern grammars. 
Also, it doesn't help that this is the result of prescriptive grammars, 
because as non-natives, we essentially have to rely on prescriptive 
grammars to learn the language.

In the meantime, I have read enough examples with singular they/them to 
not feel strange anymore. The occurrence of these examples is frequent 
enough for me to understand that it's not a spelling/grammar mistake, 
but a practice that's active in the language. And as a non-native 
speaker, I know that I always may meet phenomena that I'm not yet 
familiar with.

Also, I guess I'm at a point where I'd feel okay to use it in my own 
writing. So I can confirm that it's something one can get used to. Also, 
I have seen proposals for other gender neutral pronouns, but all of them 
are way more artificial and rarer by far.

Regards,   Martin.

> Ivan
> 
> 
> 
>>
>> Léonie.
>>
>>> [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-use-cases/
>> [2] https://github.com/w3c/idcg/issues/17
>>
>>>> Denis
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 7/22/20 1:21 PM, Léonie Watson wrote:
>>>>> Denis, this is a really positive step, thank you to you and the team.
>>>>> One suggestion - is it possible for PubRules to check for gender specific pronouns (he/she, him/her etc.) too?
>>>>> They are rare in specifications, but do sometimes feature as part of use cases or examples.
>>>>> Léonie.
>>>>> On 22/07/2020 09:40, Denis Ah-Kang wrote:
>>>>>> Dear editors and chairs,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In order to offer the best environment possible to its
>>>>>> community, W3C is supporting the push for a more inclusive and
>>>>>> neutral language, especially in our specifications.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the upcoming weeks, pubrules [1] will show a warning if
>>>>>> terms like "master", "slave", "grandfather", "sanity" or
>>>>>> "dummy" are detected in a specification and this will also
>>>>>> be reflected in the Manual of style [2] with a list of
>>>>>> alternatives.
>>>>>> Note, since it may take time for the editors to change the
>>>>>> branch name "master" to something else, we will not flag the
>>>>>> URLs containing that word in the first place.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Going forward, we will audit all the specification repositories
>>>>>> and open issues if they contain problematic terms.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Let me know if you have any comments/suggestions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Denis
>>>>>> W3C Systems team
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [1] https://www.w3.org/pubrules/
>>>>>> [2] https://w3c.github.io/manual-of-style/
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Director @TetraLogical
>> https://tetralogical.com
>>
> 
> .
> 

-- 
Prof. Dr.sc. Martin J. Dürst
Department of Intelligent Information Technology
College of Science and Engineering
Aoyama Gakuin University
Fuchinobe 5-1-10, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara
252-5258 Japan

Received on Thursday, 30 July 2020 01:24:15 UTC