Talk:Special pleading
From RationalWiki
THis is kind of difficult to follow...can someone provide an example to make it clearer? Researcher 08:47, 22 February 2009 (EST)
- I dropped the whole "person C believes stuff S" chalk-dust stuff and put it in plainer language. Does that help?
pathetic 15:25, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
[edit] s/he
I'm new here. Is "s/he" RationalWiki style? It's pretty lame, if you ask me, and certainly not grammatical. I think the better choice, in examples, is to judiciously choose to use the generic "she" and later "he." But my edit to that effect was reverted. So someone chime in and let me know. Thanks! --JoeOnSunset (talk) 02:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- Using one and then the other can only confuse people. "S/he" is at least acceptable here, I think. Peter mqzp 02:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- I wasn't suggesting using one and then the other in the same example. Only that, in general speech, when one chooses a pronoun arbitrarily, one should just make a choice but attempt to use "she" as often as "he." Or else, "he or she" if you must. Nevertheless if RationalWiki is willing to accept the non-English of "s/he" that's fine too... but isn't the sentence in the article using "s/he" AND "he" to refer to the same person? It should atleast be consistent? --JoeOnSunset (talk) 02:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- I changed it all to 'they,' which is consistent with the previous paragraph. Peter mqzp 02:28, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- Well thanks. "They" isn't technically correct, of course, either but maybe your edit won't just get straight-reverted with no discussion. Cooo000l.--JoeOnSunset (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? 'They' as a singular, neutral pronoun has been in use since forever.±
KnightOfTL;DRcritical thinking is the key to success! 02:45, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- Whatever, that's up for debate between descriptivists versus precriptivists, and was really just an aside and not my main point. I was just trying to fix an inconsistency in one sentence among the pronouns. --JoeOnSunset (talk) 02:53, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- What are you talking about? 'They' as a singular, neutral pronoun has been in use since forever.±
- Well thanks. "They" isn't technically correct, of course, either but maybe your edit won't just get straight-reverted with no discussion. Cooo000l.--JoeOnSunset (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- I changed it all to 'they,' which is consistent with the previous paragraph. Peter mqzp 02:28, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- I wasn't suggesting using one and then the other in the same example. Only that, in general speech, when one chooses a pronoun arbitrarily, one should just make a choice but attempt to use "she" as often as "he." Or else, "he or she" if you must. Nevertheless if RationalWiki is willing to accept the non-English of "s/he" that's fine too... but isn't the sentence in the article using "s/he" AND "he" to refer to the same person? It should atleast be consistent? --JoeOnSunset (talk) 02:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)