Yelling doesn't make the argument more persuasive. Not only is the word "shrill" gendered, it's famously gendered. If you were writing an article about the concept of gendered words, you could do worse than opening with the word "shrill". You could just Google this.
Again: none of this --- nothing I've said, and nothing about the comment you've chosen to angrily respond to --- implies that these changes are good. Maybe the previous commenter believes that; I don't know. But I can't read that out of anything they actually wrote.
I understand the urge to find someone, anyone, to take the other side of your argument. It's no fun to yell at the clouds! But you have to wait for someone to actually make the other argument. You can't just attribute it to people and then hammer away at them.
Kindly take your gaslighting and passive aggression somewhere else. I'm allowed to "yell" and write how I like. I haven't taken any personal shots at anyone - unlike yourself.
Even if shrill is "gendered" (The Google says it "hints" at gendered language, btw), so fucking what. The implication in GPs comment is that this justifies Newspeak-ification... It doesn't. And neither does referencing less "agreeable" authors, such as Joseph Conrad. I mean, wow dude. Talk about the worst possible takes.
Your comments in this thread have unfortunately been well into the flamewar zone that the site guidelines ask users to stay out of.
Since we just asked you to stop doing it and you've kept doing it, I think we have to ban this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I made a point of turning off the flags on this submission—I don't have any problem with the article and you can see from my comments in the thread what I think of these edits to Dahl. But you still can't break the site guidelines like this, no matter how provocative someone's comments are or you feel they are.
FWIW, while tptacek's comments to you were probably slightly edgier than usual and maybe a bit over the line, 'gaslighting' seems like a big exaggeration to me.
Again: none of this --- nothing I've said, and nothing about the comment you've chosen to angrily respond to --- implies that these changes are good. Maybe the previous commenter believes that; I don't know. But I can't read that out of anything they actually wrote.
I understand the urge to find someone, anyone, to take the other side of your argument. It's no fun to yell at the clouds! But you have to wait for someone to actually make the other argument. You can't just attribute it to people and then hammer away at them.