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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.

Cathy Caine :verified:

@briankrebs “They” will not be accepted as a singular pronoun until all us old English majors are dead.

@CathyCaine @briankrebs

Nothing against the english majors, but trying to enforce grammatical rules based on some lexicon of authority as opposed to real world usage always seemed a bit of a fool's errand to me.

Language is and always has been shifting sand, the communicative effect and utility of a word's usage or a piece of punctuation will always trump any sort of academic rule.

@CathyCaine @briankrebs Surely all English majors study Shakespeare, Byron, Jane Austen and all the other authors who have used singular "they" since the 1300s?

@CathyCaine @briankrebs “You” English majors should try reading some things outside the 20th century; they as a singular pronoun usage has an over 600 year history. It was used that way even before the singular you/your - which you can find 17th century quakers complaining about - came to be common.

@donw @briankrebs Wheh! See if I ever try to make a joke on this site again. More hate here than on X!

@CathyCaine @briankrebs Jokes that sound remarkably like the sort of constant barrage of abuse some of my friends get don’t seem all that amusing, sorry.