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 odds are good and the goods are great

I stole the title and thesis of this post from the great etirabys and arguably I should just link her post.

via Thing of Things August 31, 2026

Bug blindness

I used to wonder why I see so many more bugs than most people. I easily observe hundreds to thousands of bugs per week and nothing seems to work, but most people I talk to don't see anything like this. For a long time, I thought this had something to …

via Posts on August 30, 2026

Microfictions 2

A few more microfictions, still no LLMs.

via Evan Fields August 7, 2026

more     (via openring)