Yes, because a good majority of us write technical documents with our work, deal with requirements, or have to send in formal documentation to review committees, so we definitely care!
So although you see little use in it, I see a lot of use in the discussion. I deal with this daily (some days more than others, but definitely daily). In fact, today, less than 20 minutes ago, I was helping someone revise their document to use proper usage so the message they truly wanted portrayed, was portrayed to those who will be reading it.
Things have become very complex nowadays with language, both written and verbal. Depending on who is in the room, you may adjust what you say or how you present it because of the nomenclatures they grew up with.
Ugh. I personally hate he/she writing, and would prefer to not use that in my writing. It has nothing to do with the number of characters, but by the clunkiness of the writing. I’d much rather see this
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Because we come from environments where we are writing a lot of our initial pieces in gherkin.
When … Then …
or
Given … When … Then…
These pieces even start at the BA on many occasions and they could start or be amended by the QA and QAA (maybe the developer).
That information is built based on formal requirements and usually also leads to textual changes to the requirements because additional scenarios were identified.
Yes, tbh I almost always just rephrase, but often it creates something very awkward (including passive constructions, which editors don’t like).
As mentioned originally, options like he/she look simple enough in small doses, but if you get into that pattern it can blow out of measure if you need several in a sentence.