Note to social networking sites: “Them” is plural
Thursday, March 27th, 2008I know I’m not the only one bothered by this: the laziness shown by social networks with the use of the word “them.” Facebook, LinkedIn, pretty much every social networking site I can think of uses “them” instead of saying him or her when referring to a specific user. “You might know Mr. X — would you like to add them?” No, no, I wouldn’t like to add them. I would like to add him.
The reason I’m particularly annoyed about this is that every one of these sites asked for your gender. So they know whether I’m a him or a her. And most of them aren’t so socially progressive that they offer gender options other than male/female, which might provide the excuse of ‘it’s complicated.’ Seriously, please, fix this horrible grammar.
