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Thread: What is V's gender
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2018-07-11, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
I agree it is (and has been for some time) used in certain contexts (usually when the individual being referred to has not been identified), but I do not believe that it is so commonly used in other senses, like the examples Tiefling and I gave.
If one were to say "Georgie ate a pie, then they went to the movies", I think many (if not most) listeners would jump to the conclusion that Georgie went to the movies with others, because that is the more common use of the word in that context. Another example, "Georgie arrived home and now they have cake" I think would usually be understood to mean that the people you arrived home to have cake because your brought some, not that you arrived home and ate the cake there alone.
Do you think that the use of 'they' to mean more than one person is natural for most people in that context? Or were you just referring to the context of using 'they' to refer to a particular known individual.
I get that it may be correct grammatically, but do you think that is how most people use and understand the language?Last edited by Liquor Box; 2018-07-11 at 04:59 PM.
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2018-07-11, 05:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-07-11, 06:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-07-11, 09:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
It can be confusing, but I don't think he is any better in that regard. "Georgie ate a pie, then he went to the movies" sounds out-of-context like you know Georgie to be male. Specific gender-neutral pronouns would be clearer if the public in general knew and accepted them. And, to be honest, I've never liked xe or ze. I don't think it's any surprise they haven't caught on.
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2018-07-11, 09:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-07-12, 01:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
Originally Posted by Oxford English Dictionary entry for 'They', September 2013
Originally Posted by OED 2nd edition entry for 'They', 1989Last edited by 137beth; 2018-07-12 at 01:23 AM.
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2018-07-12, 03:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
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2018-07-12, 06:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
I was taught that in English the masculine form was universal, and the feminine form specific when using singular pronouns.
In other words, 'he' is both gender-specific for a male and gender indefinate referring to anyone, while 'she' applies only to a female.
Formally, 'he' is the proper singular pronoun to use when gender is ambiguous or unknown.
Nobody speaks, and very few people write Formal English. This is nothing new. No one has ever spoken Formal English, which is a German language forced through a Latin seive, and very few have written it since a bunch of monks and priests invented it.
Imagine a world in which people say, "This is the window through which the ball was thrown!" Native speakers have no issue saying, "This is the window the ball was thrown through," which would result in a red mark on your English paper.
English originated as a poetic language, maleable and mutable by design. Look at what Rappers do with it, for example. Priests trained in the highly formalized version of Latin that survived the Fall of Rome shoved English into a box of Latin grammar when they began using the Roman alphabet to write in English, and grade school kids have been dealing with a ruleset that is not-quite-right for the language ever since.
But the English language is mutable. It has no problem absorbing new words and concepts, but it takes time. Those of us who were taught certain useages in grade school have to die off and give the stage to those taught the new words and concepts. I know this is not sufficient for those who want Pronoun Neutrality Now, but it is how it is.
So keep searching for cool new genderless singular pronouns. I hear the Scandinavians have one. Adopt the one you like and use it. Get celebrities to use it. It may not see common useage before you get the Final Exam, but your kids will have to use it properly or get a red mark in English.
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2018-07-12, 07:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-07-12, 08:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
On the question, The Giant has already supplied the answers:
(From 2004)
(from 2005)
(from 2013)
I've already cited at least twice when Mr. Burlew decides to make Vaarsuvius "ambiguous", but
The "debate" is over 15 years old, and the debate preceded Burlew's making "Vaarsuvius' sex being ambiguous. He/she is an elf, after all.", which has been the state of the character since 2003, they're no "smoking guns" left to be found.
What V "really is" is in the minds of the author (who's been very consistent), and each reader.
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2018-07-12, 11:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
LEt's see, went to school well after 1400, beginning in the 1960's.
They was plural pronoun only in English.
Went to college in 70's.
Same.
Writing monographs in the 90's.
Same.
Having learned a couple of foreign languages in between, it was one of those things that I used to ask about, why we did not have a neuter pronoun beyond "it" ...
I began seeing they used more commonly to replace a singular gendered pronoun only in the 00's.
The exceptions being cited are just that, exceptions, but usage does change/morph over time. It is definitely, as I see things written these days, far more applied and accepted now.
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2018-07-12, 12:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
Maybe 'elf' is just a gender identity, or his gender is an untranslatable word. In a lot of games I've been in, Correllon was androgynous and elves just are either fuzzy on the issue or just have more genders.
It did? I was always taught that English was a trade pidgin that evolved so people knew exactly what they were doing and for how much, giving rise to a language that is useful but not necessarily the prettiest and prone to kleptomania.For all of your completely and utterly honest needs. Zaydos made, Tiefling approved.
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2018-07-12, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
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2018-07-12, 12:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
I’m going to respectfully disagree.
All of us have the ability to learn and grow, and I think we all have the responsibilty to accept that the world is different than what we were taught it was like in grade school.
Treating others with respect is important. And showing people that you respect them includes using pronouns that demonstrate that respect. And, we are extremely blessed to live in a time and place where we’ve all mostly agreed om a respectful gender nuetral singular pronoun, and that pronoun is “they”.
I would ask that you consider learning to use that pronoun. You’re going to meet a lot of people in your life who will appreciate your consideration.Last edited by Dion; 2018-07-12 at 12:46 PM.
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2018-07-12, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
You are disagreeing with an assertion I did not make. As I said, English is mutable and it changes all the time. I encourage you in your quest to achieve pronoun neutrality. I personally don't expect to live long enough for the usage to be taught in grammer school textbooks, but common useage over time will fix that.
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2018-07-12, 06:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
You made a specific assertion: “Those of us who were taught certain useages in grade school have to die off and give the stage to those taught the new words and concepts.”
I respectfully disagree with that specific assertion made by you. Nobody is going to wait for anyone to die before allowing the the language to evolve. People have the ability to learn new things. We’re not insects.Last edited by Dion; 2018-07-12 at 06:48 PM.
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2018-07-12, 07:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
The difference between the two versions is that the window the ball was thrown through makes the sentence end with a preposition.
This "rule" is one that was invented by stuffy grammarians who -- as brian said -- wanted English to be more like Latin. It was probably influenced by the form of the word "preposition", which literally means placed before.
(brian's history is a little out, though. These stuffy grammarians were not priests, and they wrote down their rules about a thousand years after the Roman alphabet was first used for writing English.)
However, there is no one single authority that gets to lay down the rules for "formal English". The rule against ending sentences against prepositions has been challenged and ridiculed ever since its invention.
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2018-07-12, 07:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-07-12, 08:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
I always considered him to be a male.
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2018-07-12, 10:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
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2018-07-13, 07:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-07-13, 08:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
Defenestration excludes the possibility that the ball was thrown through the window from the outside.
There are dozens of examples of rules of Formal English which native English speakers ignore in conversation. Prepositions are just an obvious example. Students often find English a difficult subject to study because so many rules have exceptions and conditions, and because many of these rules are ignored in conversational English.
The reason for that is the application of the rules of a static, dead language upon an evolving, living one, and then enforcing those rules even as the language grew far beyond anything Latin speakers could ever have imagined.
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2018-08-11, 11:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Elves and class names
Did this bit of lore make anyone else think of Fury Road?
This got me thinking...Have you ever noticed that Latin is actually a lot like Dracula!?Last edited by Bohandas; 2018-08-11 at 11:56 PM.
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2018-08-12, 11:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
"Besides, you know the saying: Kill one, and you are a murderer. Kill millions, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god." -- Fishman
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2018-08-12, 11:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-08-12, 01:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
Going from the outside in is clearly refenestration.
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2018-08-12, 01:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-08-12, 02:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-08-12, 02:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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2018-08-12, 02:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What is V's gender
I am guessing fenestration is the directionally neutral version. Since this topic is about finding neutral versions of words which impose a bias, I shall henceforth avoid the use of directionally biased words when hurling things through windows.
(Note that I am not trying to make a joke at anyone's expense. I recognize that cultural bias has loaded certain words with meanings which never should have been attached to them and I applaud the effort to overcome this obstacle.)