: Re: What's the modern way to handle gender in tech writing? Back in my day, I was taught to use masculine pronouns. The user chooses a password, and then he types it in the text box.

I was taught to use a job title as a subject, then use singular "they" for every mention until the next one, ie:

The pharmacist puts the pills into the bottle, then they give the bottle to the
customer. The customer then pays the pharmacist using their money.

You can get away with the order in sentence#2 because "pharmacist" is the object of "pays," as well as "money." It's also fairly easy to translate to other languages this way, ie in Spanish:

If the money were to belong to the customer:

Pagan al farmaceutico con su dinero.

If the money were to belong to the pharmacist:

Pagan al faracuetico con el dinero del farmaceutico

Does this really matter? I find using "he" or "she" to be faster reading than "they," as well as saving line and page space ass well as ink. "He or she," "he/she," or even worse, "s/he," are all clumsy to read, and using the job title every time is as well. Follow whatever conventions your manager gave you, and if there aren't any, then have a team meeting to decide on one convention to use.

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: Re: What's the modern way to handle gender in tech writing? Back in my day, I was taught to use masculine pronouns. The user chooses a password, and then he types it in the text box.

More posts by @Karen856

: Chekhov's gun, but it's just "useless" background info We all know how Chekhov's gun works: in short, it's the "rule" that whatever is explicitly shown to the audience should be important later,

: How do I stop using 'the' to start sentences so much? Something that always bothers me in my writing is how often I start sentences with the word "the". A terrible nonsensical example:

: Writing short stories in an original world setting I'm writing short stories in a Fantasy world setting I have created â€” medieval times, magic, dragons, etc. People who are familiar with such

: Is it ok to have many characters who only appear for a few chapters? At least 40% of the characters in my novel appear for only 2-3 chapters and I don't really have the chance to develop

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