Facebook and Singular 'They'

December 8th, 2009
facebook, ling, they
For a while facebook used singular 'they' when it wanted to talk about someone who had not specified their gender. So I would occasionally see updates from friends that read like "John Smith is mad at their sister" or "Jane Doe is happy with themself". I'm ok with singular 'they' as I used it in the first sentence of this paragraph, and facebook's usage seemed strange even to me. As a comprimise, though, I thought it was reasonable.

Apparently facebook changed this about a year ago. They claimed that translation into other languages didn't work for ungendered people. Sadness; I liked how gramatically progressive facebook was being.

Referenced in: Singular They And Social Networking: Google Plus

Comment via: facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

The One That I Want Another Sister

I want a baby sister or brother. Because I want to play with another kid, and I don't want to play with Josie because she is in preschool and I won't play with her very often. So I want to play with someone very often who is not just two people. …

via Nora Wise's Blog Posts September 5, 2026

Linkpost for September

On September 19 and 20, Sparrow Infrastructure is putting on The Overhang, a conference in Washington D.C.

via Thing of Things September 4, 2026

Ed Zitron's AI prediction track record

I was curious how well the predictions of the most widely cited AI skeptic I've seen (Ed Zitron) have done, so I looked at how his predictions panned out. To disclose my own biases, I've never had a particularly strong pro or anti AI progress posi…

via Posts on September 1, 2026

more     (via openring)