How should I refer to the OP? [closed]

Question

Numerous times I want to refer to the OP, and I found myself writing (s)he or his/her.

What is the right way to do so?

Maybe the answer is that I should continue using the (s)he, but it would be great if someone answered this, because I ask myself every time.

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Note: I am not implying anything about genders, but since I am not a native speaker, I am trying to learn how I should write, please.

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Edit: My innocent question now appears to get revived because of What does the Code of Conduct say about pronouns?

Answer 1

My rule of thumb is a combination of @jknappen's and @Glorfindel's suggestion:

• If you can get by using just OP (e.g. "OP tried to do that already", "OP's computer is broken"), stick with that and nobody can complain. (Well, people can always complain but you know what I mean).
• If not, use singular they (e.g. "OP said their computer is broken"). It may take you a bit of getting used to at first, but after a while you'll be ok with it. People might still complain about that, but extremely rarely and it'll be a weak complaint because they is rather non-specific.

I feel this minimizes assumptions about people and the chances for complaints by anybody.

Answer 2

When you are unsure how to address OP or other users on the site,

Use they/them/their.

Because there are other gendered people besides male and female and pronouns besides he and she. E.g Ze/Hir, sie. These are personal gender pronouns and are gender neutral. Taking too much time to decide what to call OP will cause a waste of time. This time can be used for writing constructive comment, question or answer. This usage of "they" will also prevent problems in miscommunication. Thus avoids users feeling bad if we call them what they are not. This is not only about gender but there are other advantages too.

1. To show respect (if they are elders or not. Giving respect is always fine. Who doesn't want respect?).
2. When they are unsure about gender.
3. When that is someone's preferred pronoun (Some prefer "they" for some reasons. Their personal preference. No harm in calling that).

Answer 3

I found myself writing (s)he or his/her.

While this construction has been used and continues being used in many (mostly formal) texts on- and offline, the new Code of Conduct considers this suboptimal:

5. "Gender-neutral"? Does that mean like "he/she"?

Not quite. While “he/she” and similar compound pronouns are better than a default masculine “he” alone, gender-neutral writing works to avoid gendered terms entirely when gender is unknown, either through rephrasing statements to avoid pronouns or through the usage of singular (or plural) “they”. For examples and other methods, see Kate Gregory’s answer to a related question - Define "gender-neutral language"? (CoC FAQ)

I'll admit singular "they" sounds less natural to me than "he/she", because my native language doesn't have the former construction and uses the latter. But it's getting better after four years of visiting Stack Exchange.

Alternatively, replace all instances of personal pronouns with 'author', '@username', 'OP' (when directed at the user who posted the question) etc.

Answer 4

I really rarely have any reason to talk about the OP as a person. So a typical reference to the OP goes like I read the OP's question as ... It (i.e., the OP's question) is ... Keeping a focus on the question and the answer relieves us from talking about the person, speculating about motives, gender, religion, or other personal traits.

Answer 5

The UN has some guidelines for gender-inclusive language used for their staff.

They do say that plural pronouns are a bad thing for formal writing (though OK for informal writing, such as personal emails):

In informal writing, such as emails, plural pronouns may be used as a shortcut to ensure gender inclusiveness. Such strategies are not recommended in formal writing.

For more official sources of writers and language experts, the American Heritage Dictionary has a panel of experts who are polled on language changes. "singular they" was added as a usage (2b) referring to gender-neutral writing, but polling showed controversary whether it was correct use of language:

Resistance remains strongest when the sentence refers to a specific individual whose gender is unknown, rather than to a generic individual representative of anyone: in our 2015 survey, 58 percent of the Panel found We thank the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments unacceptable.

The recent use of singular they for a known person who identifies as neither male nor female remains controversial; as of 2015 only 27 percent of the Panelists accepted Scout was born male, but now they do not identify as either traditional gender.

My opinion is that both "they" and "he" should be acceptable. If the majority here have to be nice enough to accept the LGBTQ+ definition of gender pronouns, then then LGBTQ+ group should also be nice enough to accept that many use 'generic he' in a gender-inclusive manner. Tweaking all posts and comments to use username or OP is not going to be practical, nobody realistically writes that way, so forcing a change in their manner of thinking is going to be problematic, and that's not even before we consider people for whom English is not their primary language.

I have referred to someone on this site as "he" without knowing anything about the author other than their username. I received a reply telling me that they were flagging my comment because I hadn't referred to them "correctly", which caused me great distress. I'd rather the site was primarily concerned with intellectual responses on a totally genderless basis only.