Underline not mine.
The book is ‘A course in game theory’ by Martin J. Osborne and Ariel Rubinstein.
I’m fascinated by the conviction expressed by the author specially in these lines (brackets added by me for additional context): “If such usage diverts some readers’ attentions from the subjects discussed in this book and leads them to contemplate sexism in the use of language, which is surely an issue at least as significant as the minutae of sequential equilibrium (a topic within game theory), then an increase in social welfare (an objective within some game theoretic problems) will have been achieved.” – Reader, I could feel a mic drop.
It’s interesting to observe academics within STEM express passionate opinions about topics and issues outside their primary academic interests. More so when they are expressed in print, with such understated passion as shown here. Perhaps the more interesting thing to note was that this was written and published in 1994. I was naively under the impression that this was a more modern debate.
The first time I came across this flip in usage was in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens in 2017 - the novelty of it felt refreshing at the time. I did find a discussion on the right usage of he/she in William Zinsser’s On Writing Well a year or so later. It’s old - being first published in 1976 - but this bit was an addendum in later editions (I couldn’t find from which edition the addition was made from a quick google search).
Zinsser, in his characteristic frank and unsparing tone, had this to say:
An obvious solution, ofcourse, is to use the terms he and she alternately. Our own professor for the course (Dr. Yadati Narahari) has a book on Game Theory & Mechanism Design - and this is exactly what he has done as well, like the compromise reached by our earlier authors.
All this to say: as pointless as this debate may sound for some, the words you use do indicate a particular pattern of thought. Whose thoughts are they, and what do they reflect?
(And also: I really should be catching up on the rest of my Game Theory coursework, seeing as I’ve been stuck on the preface for a while).
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