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by wccrawford 5461 days ago
Spanish speakers don't have the same hangups about using 'he' as the gender-neutral pronoun. It's just a part of their language.

English is the one where people get bent out of shape over it.
2 comments
mtts 5461 days ago
No, Dutchies don't like it either. I don't think it's language specific. It probably has something to do with how much machismo or political correctness there is in a culture :-)

By that logic, Americans are probably more upset about this than, say, Nigerians (I assume Nigerian culture(s) are rather less PC than American culture).

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wccrawford 5461 days ago
That's a good point. I don't know all languages, so I can only speak for the ones I know.

I also suspect it's a PC thing.

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nandemo 5461 days ago
Right, but that gender-neutral he only works we're talking about a "generic" or hypothetical someone. You cannot use in (say) Facebook or Google+ for a text referring to a female friend.

In English, some people still use they/their in this case. In Portuguese (and I think Spanish and other major Latin languages) you can't do that.

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