Out of the way

I got a common piece of spam the other day, which included the following:

..., a person they’ve done business with at @@, requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn

(In the original I also got a stupid entity thing instead of an apostrophe)

A person they've?!?! Hello people, which they are you talking about?? I get more and more annoyed that sites use "they" instead of "him" or "her".


I understand that some people don't want to say if they are male or female (just saying you are female seems to invite lots of extra unwelcome attention - although my profiles generally admit that I am male and I still get asked if I am a nice girl and want to chat with some guy or other...). I understand that sites like facebook, dopplr or linkedin don't want to offend their users.

But I will happily tell all three of these sites that I am male. (Although I have accounts on all three, inpractice I pretty much ignore facebook, I only ever logged into linkedIn once, but I do use DopplR because the people who made it are nice, and it does something useful). So if they think I am happy for them to have the information, why do they think that they are somehow special and I tell them things I wouldn't tell the rest of the world?

And as for the above example, it is just plain wrong. I believe LinkedIn meant to say "a person you've done business with". And they probably should figure out how to use a simple apostrophe or just write the words in full.

Here endeth the grumpy-old-person-with-nothing-better-to-do rant. (I have real work to do - next time I will try to write about something more important - or at least more important to me).