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By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.
We will select the best questions from the thread and provide answers to the community. These questions may not be the highest rated, although we will probably use those first.
In keeping with tradition, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 1) by unitron on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:52PM
"The following comments are owned by *he* who posted them." is the version that doesn't make my brain hurt.
Most "who/whom" usage questions can be solved by converting to "they/them" and seeing which sounds right to the mind's ear.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 1) by TheSage on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:42AM
"The following comments are owned by *he* who posted them." is the version that doesn't make my brain hurt.
My wife will hunt you down and explain gender neutral language to you.
May $DEITY have mercy on your soul.
(Score: 1) by unitron on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:55AM
I would be equally happy with "she who posted them" instead of "her", since it's just an alternate as a way to illustrate when to use "who" and when to use "whom", both of which, last I checked, are not gender specific.
So my problem wasn't with "he" versus "she" but "he" versus "him".
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 1) by johaquila on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:04AM
Unfortunately your post proves that these usage questions can no longer be solved this way by most native speakers because they have started getting even these simple things wrong. The correct (though of course sexist) version of your sentence is (currently) still the following: "The following comments are owned by *him* who posted them."
For further illustration, a very classical example with a nice workaround for the problem:
"*He* that is without sin among you, let *him* first cast a stone at her".
The correct short version of this has always been:
"Let *him* who is without sin cast the first stone at her." (60 Google hits in 19th century books)
But more and more speakers are preferring a new, formerly (and arguably still) ungrammatical version:
"Let *he* who is without sin cast the first stone at her." (8 Google hits in 19th century books)
This new variant already has 50% more Google hits than the old one. There are even reports of copy editors who have already started 'correcting' the correct version into the new one: http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/let-her -who-is-without-error/ [wordpress.com]
This is just normal language change. What used to be wrong becomes right, what used to be right sounds antiquated or even ungrammatical to more and more people, and before you know it we are yet another little step removed from the language of Chaucer.