[aroch]

The "male" pronoun's use is grammatically correct when the gender of the subject is unknown.

Take your SJW puffery to Tumblr.

[dang]

> Take your SJW puffery to Tumblr

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't address other users like this.

(My comment here has nothing to do with pronouns.)

[hyperpape]

How is this anything but a non-sequitur? Personal attacks aren't ungrammatical and racial slurs aren't ungrammatical. Yelling "FIRST!" at the top of a comment thread probably isn't ungrammatical either. Like using 'he' for a generic user, each behavior is obnoxious (albeit in different ways and with different scales).

Singular they is well established as a grammatical construction (http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/sgtheirl.html, for instance), and avoids the issue entirely.

[comrh]

You don't have to be a jerk about it.

[cfqycwz]

It is true that the use of male pronouns in gender-neutral context has historically been considered correct and is still considered correct by many. It is, however, generally discouraged because it only serves to reinforce the very real and problematic implication of male as the "default" sex.

[okasaki]

Discouraged by whom?

[hyperpape]

It's a fairly common prescription in style guides, though it is still debated: try Googling "style guides gender neutral language" for instance.

[brenschluss]

Incorrect. Grammar, like all aspects of language, are socially generated. Currently, the shift has been to move towards 'she' or 'they' as a default gender.

Saying "'he' is grammatically correct" is like saying "C++ is the proper programming language." It's all about usage.

[mikeash]

And "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun is still quite common usage, thus still correct by your definition of it.