Thank God Wikipedia has now a button to snooze the donation request. It annoyed me a lot getting the message while having donated. Won't donate anymore though. They've raped the English language on purpose by accepting "they" as singular pronoun. "their being here" is valid against to them. I won't donate woke misinformation and Merriam Webster, grow some spine

Englisch is not my native tongue so I wonder what better options exist to address everyone.

@lastNick it's nog my native language too. I really hope that I didn't make a mistake in my post. But as I said, purposely. Forgive the people making mistakes

I wouldn't donate a cent to Wikipedia, just look up how much money they're hoarding

@devRancid I do appreciate adfree tbh. They're making a lot? Would be unethical to keep donation popup for long then. Will check

@devRancid
Revenue
$180.2 million (2023)
$154.7 million (2022)
Expenses
$169.0 million (2023)
$146.0 million (2022)

Hmm, acceptable imho. You do need some cash for worse times

@devRancid thanks for comment, I just researched common profit margins per sector and stuff. Not sure what their sector is. If it's IT, they're doing very bad with 6.2%, but ofc it's "non profit". Comparing to other sectors it's low to ok

They has been singular for centuries.

Also, fundamentally, English is a descriptivist language. You know that it is used in singular form, that's why you're mad. References should describe that usage.

We're not the French.

@atheist they is first found being used that way in Oxford Dictionary in 2009. Not centuries. The word itself is singular, yes.

Another example for valid example of Wikipedia is "That person over there seems to be waving their hands at us.". Do you consider this valid?

A bit weird tho to refer to "a person" and assume it's a "they" tho. What did that person do to you

@atheist
Every time I see someone saying this, I only see jealousy. We didn’t all grew up speaking a subtle language, but it’s fine, you’ll survive this.

@mostr4am stop anthropomorphizing a language. People speak it because it’s the universal language, not because of its history.

@retoor I support your rejection of the wokefication of the language.
In Germany a similar madness is going on where every noun gets a retarded female suffix so that it’s "inclusive".

@Lensflare we are forced to speak it and it’s nothing nice.

@mostr4am Can we have less Brits in the UK as well? They are unbearable tbh

@Lensflare like if the women felt excluded by the language. Don't freaking think so. Can you give some example? I can't imagine it clearly

@retoor OED you say? "The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375" https://oed.com/discover/...

I'm sure all those wokies just want to be nice. That's fine. But you can't change certain stuff just to be nice. Don't forget that some wokies think that math is racist. 2+2=4 == unfair according to some. Prolly some George Orwell fan thought it was funny to teach that to a wokie. It's to crazy that exactly the wokie used that formula, it must be reference

@Tounai what? I dont give a shit. Someone wants to fight their language crusade, be it programming or people, they could at least get their facts right. See citation above.

@Lensflare stop using the "woke" English, it's already "inclusive", down with gender neutral languages! Or maybe get over yourself. Stop telling people how they should act and just accept you're being left behind.

Down with "you"! No more gender neutral singular pronouns! Oh wait that's fucking stupid.

@atheist that's not what Wikipedia says about the first reference. I don't have it from nowhere. And yes- Wikipedia is sadly indeed my source where I rely on. That's why I'm disappointed about certain content.

That left behind comment is really sad tbh It's that really how you think about it? Is that the reason you accept it? Else you're left behind? Damn :( Sorry for triggering you

@retoor Wikipedia you say? "This use of singular they had emerged by the 14th century" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

@retoor wokies aren't nice, they're powered by guilt

and they make more wokies by bullying people into guilt every day, it's not even real guilt. it's lazy guilt, like it's trauma

it's literally a cult with a hazing ritual so you listen to the man at the top

@retoor I don't feel left behind. I'm able to adapt. I do think a lot of other people are left behind. This tends to come out in, for example, complaining about how people use language. Technology is a massive social dividing wedge, I think it's left a lot of older (not even really old) behind.

My favourite trend is people complaining about the younger generation. There are news articles every few years on this going back at least a hundred years.

@jestdotty also I think they make more advanced topics deliberately hard to understand. I thought maybe I was imagining it but as I've seen them be dishonest about various topics last few years I am now thinking this is 100% happening and it's 100% deliberate

they're equating understanding advanced disciplines with being snobby, and the actual descriptions have little application

it's like the academia version of idiocracy, the slide to snobbishness and "I'm better than the peasants and must act like my stature and keep the riffraff out" and certificate gatekeeping and internally-made university language gatekeeping... and the literature they cite is increasingly bogus and deranged. now politics creep into 20-80% of the scientific articles, to push communism lmao... but they won't think critically about it. they're literally insane and pretending there's only one perspective

@atheist you don't decide what is being left behind and what not. But I do, on the other hand, do decide what is woke and what not. It's an unfair world.

In 1984 all definitions changed too officially. But that didn't make them true. Yes, maybe years ago when they weren't woke. But times change.

If we would let decide the Open Source Foundation what is open - OpenAI is according to them open source company and even Windows AFAIK - IF you can get the source.. Do you let them decide what is open source with such opinions?

Technology is a massive social dividing wedge, some people couldn't handle the amount of information and started to hallucinate like a freaking LLM.

@retoor you decide what you call woke. Why should anyone care what you think? Some of your contributions to the debate thus far have been demonstrably factually false, so your premise is clearly not well researched.

@atheist If you accuse me of lying you go to far. This "Though "singular they" has long been used with antecedents such as everybody or generic persons of unknown gender, this use, which may be chosen by an individual, is recent.[102] The earliest recorded usage of this sense documented by the Oxford English Dictionary is in a tweet from 2009;" is also mentioned on the same page.

@retoor I didn't accuse you of lying. I said your facts were false and therefore poorly researched. Lying would be an attempt to knowingly deceive.

@atheist No, it's not. I'm sure i spend less effort than you're doing now because you're triggered as F. There are much articles about this for a reason

@retoor so! The Wikipedia article is referencing the OED's cited examples of usage. The OED doesn't specify that date as the earliest use in that form, that's just the earliest example they cite. The page cited by Wikipedia does not talk about when that form started to be used.

@retoor I'm not triggered. I'm not putting any effort into this coz I already know this shit. I find linguistics interesting.

@retoor there are lots of articles about this because people like to bike shed.

@atheist GPT: Yes, the definition of "they" has evolved in recent years, particularly in its use as a singular pronoun. Here’s an overview of how its definition has changed:

Historical Use of "They"

Traditional Use: Historically, "they" has been used as a singular pronoun in English to refer to a person whose gender is unknown or unspecified, such as in "Someone left their umbrella."

Recent Changes

Singular "They" for Non-Binary and Gender Inclusive Usage:

Recognition: In recent years, the singular "they" has been increasingly recognized and endorsed as a pronoun for individuals who identify as non-binary or gender non-conforming. This usage acknowledges and respects individuals whose gender identity does not fit within the traditional binary of male or female.

Formal Endorsement: Major style guides and dictionaries have updated their definitions to include this modern use.

@retoor jesus fucking christ I don't care what gpt says, it's just spouting what you want to hear. Cite something rigorously researched, like, for example, the OED. Unless you can only find puff pieces to support your argument.

@atheist So you say, that nothing changed about it since a few years? That's a yes?

@retoor I didn't read anything past gpt, so if you're referencing something it said, I've got no idea. Give a citation. GPT is an approximation, not knowledge. Anyway, it's 1am here so I'm off to bed.

@atheist GPT is also woke, so i considered it a valid source for you

@atheist I'm not a linguistics nerd but English uses "they" to be neutral. maybe it's not written in academic articles or something but I've read books

I used to use "one may do X" in speech when I was growing up and people really didn't like that but that's another one. at some point "one may" changed into "you may" so I switched to the "general you", but last 5 or so years now people misunderstand what even that means, that it isn't a specifically you thing but a general you thing

when I used "one" as a kid people said I sounded weird

I probably picked it up from some books, or Internet forums I guess since that was my primary reading method. I don't care who I'm talking about so I favoured that more distant writing style cuz that's how I think

I remember picking up vocabulary and language really well then. now I have brain damage. gg. can't even remember symbols I just saw 2 seconds ago

also language is frankly boring. prove me wrong. it's boring.

I really don't understand the fascination of they/them pronoun. If you want to change your gender, go ahead and get a sex reassignment surgery. 🤡They/them is definitely for plural.

@daniel-wu wanting to change gender isn't that weird. Go ahead indeed. But saying you're not one of the two genders is not normal imo. You can't be a brother laser printer mfc-l2717dw. But let's focus on the "they" word before another discussion gets started :P

@retoor wow, the comment section has exploded!

You asked for an example for what’s going on in Germany.

There is the word Benutzer which translates to user. It is used for both male and female users. But now some loud minority is pushing that we should always write Benutzer:in or Benutzer*in to also include female users, because in their opinion, Benutzer is only for males. 99% of Germans, including women don’t want this change to happen. Yet it is still discussed and being pushed hard. And the public media and many other companies and even schools started to use it and started to demand that their employees and students use it too, even if it’s not law (and will probably never be).

@Lensflare well, law doesn't define a language right? We also in Dutch could make from a student (gender neutral already) a studentin. But we don't have that stuff going on. Yh, that loud minority. We had a holiday in NL that a loud minority didn't like. They kept on complaining for it every year and the news kept publishing it and after several years the holiday got changed. The news kept giving them a podium. Everyone has the right to be heard but they kept repeating this so many times. They liked the discussions it raised. The discussions were not fun most times. They don't care. I consider them unethical bastards. Always deviding

@Lensflare also, I think it's allowed in Dutch to put in behind everything to make it female but no one does it. The example I gave of studentin, rarely, you actually do see that word. How are they gonna call a female doktor in future? Doktorin? Sounds cool

@jestdotty I’m not teaming up with anyone. Sometimes tosensei and me have the same opinion but more often than not we have different opinions and it’s reflected in the comments.

I’m insufferable because I’m German? Well, what tells that about you?
Think about that for a minute.

@retoor It’s the same in German. Technically Benutzer is male and Benutzerin is female. But practically the male form has always been used for both because it’s shorter and more readable. No one had a problem with that and no one felt excluded.
Until some individuals came and started to make it an issue.

Law doesn’t define a language but when schools force the students to use it in their writings otherwise they get rejected, then this shit becomes absurd and you have to remind that it’s not even freaking law!

@jestdotty btw, how pathetic can you be that you need to say how much you hate me in each comment of an unrelated topic?
I remember you said that you don’t hold grudges against anyone. I guess that was as much bs as the rest of your claims is?

@jestdotty @Lensflare be nice to eachother. You're both rustceans. You two share a trauma. * laughs in scarii malloc *

@jestdotty Yes there is a point of diminishing returns to being overly scrupulous about the rules of the language.
We live in a society now so I think language goes slightly beyond just a means to communicate. It’s become the very form of thought.

@retoor Dear god. You’re quoting GPT? At least ask it to back up it’s output with references and if you’re not bothered to read the references yourself, then at least post them so others more inclined can read those instead. May we be saved when the path to well researched references ceases to exist.

@dimsumexception relax.. And my references are posted here. Go research yourself. May we be saved when the path to well researched references ceases to exist. The irony

"They've raped the English language on purpose by accepting "they" as singular pronoun."

did you know that "you" is strictly plural?

are you consequent in "preventing language rape" and switch back to "thou"?

or can you accept that "change" is simply a thing that also happens to language, and that "they are" is simply superior to "he or she or [lacking word for nonbinaries, which aren't a new invention either] is"?

@retoor Yes I saw your references but I’m talking specifically about quoting GPT. I’m saying when we ask GPT something, we better also get the references out of it.

@dimsumexception ok

@retoor I’m actually not a rustcean 😂.
I’m a Swift fanboy. It’s the better Rust.

I merely resonate with the general principals of Rust which stand orthogonal to those of JS.

I think @jestdotty doesn’t identify as a rustcean either 😄

@tosensei haha, sure, I only don't accept this case.

@Lensflare Cool, you're a Swiftii. Yeah, Taylor is the best. She totally beats Rust.

You can use a WikiLess instance as an anti-tracking tool:

https://wiki.poast.org/

I've written about Wikipedia's propaganda and money usage before. I would never give them any money again:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/...

@tosensei What? No .. you is singular or plural. It's been that way since I was a kid.

English removed informal "you" (thee, thy).

Do you even English?

@Lensflare Ah, in the online Russian magazine "Теплица социальных технологий" they use some perverted kind of feminitives with words similar to "волонтёр*ка" or "обжил*ась", making any article text not as inclusive as was intended. I talked some sense to them, with all respect in the world, but they still double-down on this way of writing. I pity the readers that have to get used to this experiment.

If we want inclusiveness, I told them, it's not going to happen over night and that treating "male" words as neutral with just a few adjustments in sentences helps better, letting readers decide for themselves, as it should be.

@djsumdog you is plural, thou is singular. thou just went out of fashion _long before you were born_ and you is being used for both since then.

because, you know.... language changes.

@tosensei yes, the language changes and has to change. But why not use a word that’s not already used for something else (they) to make it less confusing?
I personally am not against change. I’m only against retarded change.

@jestdotty "make people dependent on thinking in language though, some Russians wrote about how not teaching people language means you get to limit their thought" is 1984-ish. In that book they also changed dictionary to let people think certain way. Or not to think certain way. Imagine if George would see all our computers voluntary in our houses, he would get crazy. We're ten times worse than his fantasy in 1948. Yes, 1984 was written in 1948. He did some nice predictions tho

@jestdotty are you acting dumb on purpose or do you just like to be annoying?

My comment has already heavily implied if not explicitly confirmed that I’m German.

Plus you read it in my profile and already seemed like you already know.

I am German. Clear enough?

@mostr4am good. Something for you to read: https://conservapedia.com/Main_Page...

@Lensflare because "repurposing something that already exists" is less trouble than "inventing something completely new".

especially since the change is as small as "this can specify a set of 1 or more people" instead of "this can specify a set of 2 or more people". you could even argue that this is just "fixing a off-by-one-error"

@tosensei I don’t agree that it is less trouble but I see how this could actually be the reasoning.