It's frustrating that I frequently get comments on my site from people who are mad about the use of "they" instead of he or she to describe unknown individuals.
The reason I use "they" in these cases has everything to do with the fact that I've been wrong on gender assumptions previously, and that attempting to divine someone's orientations from what they say or post is a fool's errand.
More to the point, a surprising (to me, anyway) number of English-speaking cybercriminals are born with one gender but identify with another. Some are transitioning to another gender, and some have already taken that step.
Also, for the kind of investigations I do, someone's gender is usually the least useful or interesting aspect of who they are in real life, because they are often involved in some crazy illegal stuff.
@briankrebs the whole pronoun thing is offensive bullshit essentially - disavow
@briankrebs It boggles my mind why and how anyone could even take offense by the word 'they' used in such a way. It's been used like that for literally hundreds of years.
@briankrebs You can’t please everyone, but you can stick to your principles. Not all feedback is actionable.
@briankrebs I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. That's one of the reasons non-gendered pronouns exist in English; when you don't know the specifics of the person you're talking about or when you don't want to specify.
Surely only people with brainworms actually have strong opinions on this?! We all took like 2nd grade English in the US, right?? This whole "controversy" lights my brain on fire.
@briankrebs And anyway, isn't "they" the _traditional_ third-person pronoun for unknown or ambiguous gender ("it" being reserved for "does not have a gender")? You'd think the people who'd complain about "pronouns" would be all about using the traditional forms...
hi there @briankrebs
i can see why that is frustrating for you.
for what it's worth, i appreciate that you use "they" as a default value
i think that defaulting to `they` in the absence of signalling on a person's preferred labelling is a gentle and inclusive approach.
i use this by default.
i also try to check & if for any reason i've missed the relevant signalling or get asked to use a specified label, then i'll immediately comply and try to continue.
else:
"they" by default is great
@briankrebs “They” will not be accepted as a singular pronoun until all us old English majors are dead.
@briankrebs
Would also like to point out that in other languages, like most Indian languages, 'they' pronoun is used as a mark of respect, irrespective of the gender, or is used when you don't know the gender of the other person.
So using 'they' always felt correct to me because that's what I translate to automatically in the scenario you descrive.
@briankrebs this is what the right does to win elections. Bring up left leaning topics all the time. For example they point to defund police and point to transgenders in sports. The perception in mainland America is that we all support those things because we ALLOW them to bring this into the agenda. These issues do NOT deserve national attention. I call people what they want to be called and that is not anything special to talk about. Talk about business consolidation and right wing extremists
@briankrebs Bots? Probably with the goal to kill people's time so they don't do useful things.
For streamers on Twitch who play multiplayer games it's very, very common to adress other players with "they" – because it's not possible to discern genders from nick names used in multiplayer games.
@briankrebs Trans (or whatever) people in the English speaking world generally don't have much in the way of job prospects, don't have much cash (they tend to get disowned or at least isolated from their family on top of not having good job prospects), and often look at the world from a very different perspective than the majority of the population. Many of them already have to go outside what's legal to get medical care so they've already got one hand in the extra-legal world. It's basically the means and motive to do exploitation work combined with a lack of alternatives. Want to see a reduction in cybercrime? Start addressing transphobia in the West.
I'm old and bitter, i've already gone through all those fights but i never felt it made sense to go black hat. If i were young and queer today, though? If i knew then what i know now about the direction my life was going to go? Logically, amorally, it would make a lot of sense.
@briankrebs
Being sort of "neurodivergent" I sometimes struggle with the use of emoticons.
On a recent post I just wrote:
<insert appropriate emoticon>
Let he among us who has mastered the Oxford dictionary and the elements of style cast the first stone
<insert appropriate emoticon>
@briankrebs They has been used for ages to refer to people in a gender neutral manner, the trolls who are harassing you over your correct use of English are not worth your time.
@briankrebs I'm with you... When I was growing up in the 80's and early 90's, I was taught in school that "he/him" could mean masculine or an unknown identity.
As long as the message is clear, I feel like it's my obligation to adjust to "they/them" for an unknown identity since it can now imply a masculine identity to others. I'm creating the confusion by being stubborn and hiding behind the defense of "That's how I was raised so..."
@briankrebs Unless they are male chauvinists, what pronoun do they want to use to refer to unknown individuals?
@briankrebs They is perfectly acceptable and has been around in the English language for a very long time.
@briankrebs I'm always surprised how many ppl would rather use "he or she" instead of just simply saying they.
English is a foreign language for me, & the fact that there even are gendered pronouns felt strange at 1st. Nowadays I tend to use they as a default, especially online where I often have no idea what pronouns the other person might prefer. I regularly get misgendered online, & while it doesn't bother me (just makes me curious why), it's another reason why I like to use they.
@briankrebs I still don't get Why people have an issue with the concept of a Singular They
@briankrebs my English teacher in middle school chastised me for using "they" to in place of a singular person. She insisted if I didn't use he or she, the only alternative was to use "it".
And, it also drove her batty whenever I started a sentence with "And". 😉
@briankrebs People who are mad you exert the bare minimum of care to be courteous to others are telling you who they are and exactly how much attention you should pay to them.
@briankrebs I love when authors wrong-foot me by introducing a character and then subverting my preconceptions with an unexpected gender. A female pilot, a male kindergarten teacher, yes, of course! But it jogs me and I appreciate it as someone who grew up with the default “he” and very stereotypical gender roles
@briankrebs Related, I’ll strip age/gender/race when describing someone if it isn’t relevant. I’ll ask myself, “why am I mentioning this? Is it disparaging?” And usually I find it is.
@briankrebs If you say “they” then the reader can fill with someone they identify with. A young girl may think “yes, I can be a fighter pilot like them,” and this is good, actually.
I guess in your reporting, “yes, I can be a notorious cyber criminal,” but, still 😆
Lot of people are still furious at King James for his woke linguistic innovations and talking like the faculty lounge is real life.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003572.html
@briankrebs I Hope my comment doesn't offend, but why be nice to cybercriminals by using gender neutral terms? I just call them rude names to deliberately annoy them. Admittedly I use really rude names and not pronouns lol
@briankrebs as a German native speaker it's very weird when you first mention the name of a person an later in the sentence or following sentences you use "they". "They" is plural so I'm confused about who you mean.
🗣️ 📣 AND IT IS GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT!!!
jfc if people are going to complain about how you use the English language they better fucking have a PhD in it. willfully ignorant asshats can shut the fuck down.
I remember 20 or 30 years ago reading any number of written materials that would choose at the beginning of the material which pronoun they would use to refer to the reader or use in examples.
I also remember it being a big deal that someone would choose to use they in lieu of he or she.
They has never bothered me and always seemed like an acceptable solution to the problem.
@briankrebs A shortfall of self-awareness and empathy, or an anger addiction, or politics and trolling.
Preferably responding with a “bless your heart” included.
Or perhaps the wisest course in this context, ignore them.
@briankrebs Funfact, I learned in school to use "they" whenever the gender is either unknown or irrelevant to the story. That was in a German 5th grade. I'm 36 😅
@briankrebs "usually the least useful or interesting aspect". I'm not so sure. Just look at the number of comments here. Perhaps the pronouns these people are using is more interesting than the "crazy illegal stuff", and you could consider adjusting your reporting to suit.
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@briankrebs I don't believe in LGBT gender ideology at all but I respect the use of "they". I think its new usage is a welcome addition to English. Saying "he or she" is rather cumbersome, and when dealing with blurry online identities like the ones you deal with, they could be singular or plural.
@briankrebs Lots of people have problems with pronouns. I'm struggling with con-nouns. Not to speak of dangling participles.
@briankrebs 'they' is a great multi use word. They that are dismissive of the word 'they' need to need to appreciate the language more. I wonder which grade level they read at?
@briankrebs "This use of singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they. It has been commonly employed in everyday English ever since and has gained currency in official contexts. Singular they has been criticised since the mid-18th century by prescriptive commentators who consider it an error. Its continued use in modern standard English has become more common and formally accepted with the move toward gender-neutral language..."
Even in just normal day to day stuff, if I don't know someone's pronouns I don't want to make assumptions so I refer to them as they until I know otherwise. It just seems like common sense.
@briankrebs The gendering is a indoeuropean thing. Germanic, slavic, romanic etc languages. Finno-ugri languages and I bet most other world languages don't have a gender for the word "he/she". In estonian, it's just "tema", short form "ta" for everyone.
Indoeuropeans happened to be the most prolific conquerors and have the dominant cultures in the world at the moment, that's why the pronoun thing seems so prevalent.
@briankrebs It's the weird popular aversion to the singular "they" that's new, and has arisen alongside a conservative culture war targeting trans and non-binary people. English grammar has always had three genders - male, female and neuter - and the Oxford English Dictionary, considered the definitive reference guide for the language, traces singular "they" back to 1375!
It's just standard grammar. Like the Latin prefix "cis", it wasn't made up yesterday by "woke" gender warriors.