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  "path": "/archives/2026-mar-jun.html#9_June_2026_(malik_muhammad_prison_oregon_south_carolina)",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-10T08:38:15.000Z",
  "site": "https://stallman.org",
  "tags": [
    "tell where perse\nwas.",
    "gender less singular pronouns."
  ],
  "textContent": "Prisons in the US sometimes lose track of a prisoner, making it impossible for relatives and lawyers to contact per. The result is terrible. This article focuses on Malik Muhammad; Oregon sent per into a South Carolina prison and per family could not tell where perse\nwas.\n\nI found this article gratuitously hard to understand because of its unannounced and unexplained use of plural pronouns to refer to Malik Muhammad. For each plural pronoun there was some group of people that it could have referred to. I had almost reached the end before I realized I had been misunderstanding over and over.\n\nThis sort of problem is part of the reason why I completely reject use of plural pronouns for an individual. For the situations where I don't know someone's gender, and for people who assert non binary gender, I use gender less singular pronouns.\n\nWe should all switch to them, to make our speech and writing easier to understand.",
  "title": "Losing track of a prisoner"
}