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2017-06-23, 09:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2006
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- Poland
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
I really don't think that there are many places in the world where villages aren't named after simple geographical marks/dwellers/owners....
Just googled my nearest neigborhood for better remembering, and yup there's mostly:
"Cold Water"
"Thorny"
"Reedy"
"Empty libera villa"
"Sparrow's"
"New Clay"
In very loose translation.
Most names that are obscure are mostly due to preserving some archaic vocabulary, morphology/phonology and undergoing some contractions.Avatar by KwarkpuddingThe subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.
Whoever makes shoddy beer, shall be thrown into manure - town law from Gdańsk, XIth century.
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2017-06-23, 03:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2006
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- Bristol
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Although he spent much of his life in Spain, he wasn't really Spanish - his family were German, and he was born and grew up in Ghent. His grandfather Ferdinand II put quite a bit of effort into trying to stop him inheriting at least the Aragonese parts of Spain, because he was a foreigner, and he wanted to be succeeded by a Spaniard. (Somewhat ironically, Charles' brother Ferdinand did spend a lot more time in Spain as a youth and was considered a preferable heir by their grandfather, but he ended up running Germany while Charles took over Spain).
Like I say, I have no problem with "Emperor Charles V", nor with "King Charles of Spain", both of which are almost completely accurate, and I think I could even stomach "Emperor Charles of Spain". It's the specific combination, mangling his titles and numerals together, that bothers me. But I am a huge pedant.GITP Blood Bowl Manager Cup
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2017-06-23, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
I think part of London (the financial district) is called "the City", to distinguish it from the rest of London.
As a child I was taught to refer to San Francisco as "The City", to do otherwise marked you as from out-of-state (like my father), or even worse from Los Angeles (like my mother)!
Municipal employees are taught to call it "The City AND The County"
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2017-06-23, 06:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2017-06-23, 07:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
So, the format "[transitive verb] of [noun]" always makes the noun the object of the verb. If you say "the pillage of Rome", it's immediately understood that Rome is the target of the pillage, no matter how much pillaging they themselves did.
The point being that, if a certain author of 1914 had just thought to omit the word "epilogue", then he would pull off his nifty bit of misdirection with the final chapter title, without completely cheating the laws of grammar. But no.Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
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2017-06-23, 09:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
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- The Imagination
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Er... no, it doesn't. It does in the vast majority of cases, but no, you're incorrect that it always does. Or rather, there is no "[transitive verb] of [noun]" format that I can think of. "Of" can also mean "from" or "belonging to," and those meanings are used in the format "[noun] of [noun]", which, I might point out, is what "the pillage of Rome" actually is: you're using the noun form of pillage. So while yes, most people will understand Rome was the target of the pillage, it isn't "cheating the laws of grammar" to use that phrasing to mean "the pillage belonging to Rome" aka "the pillage perpetrated by Rome."
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2017-06-24, 12:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
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2017-06-24, 01:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2015
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2017-06-24, 03:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2006
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- Bristol
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
"Your Highness"
They would most likely just have referred to him simply as "the Emperor". There was only one* at the time so everyone would know who was meant. It's unlikely that the numeral would have been used at all except in official documents: Charles IV had died over a hundred years before so there was little need to distinguish them. Early in his reign and to avoid confusion with his grandfather, he might have been "the Emperor Charles". He could conceivably also have been "King Charles" or "King [Charles] of Spain", especially between 1516 and 1519, before he was Emperor. Again, though, it's unlikely a numeral would have been habitually used.
In much the same way as Commonwealth citizens tend to refer merely to "the Queen" and everyone understands who is meant, while it's relatively rare for the name and numeral to get used unless it's needed for clarity or formality, I suspect it was much the same in the 16th century.
*In Europe, at least. The Emperors of China, Japan, Persia, Ethiopia, and the Mughal Emperor, when mentioned at all, most likely were referred to as such, or by some other title (e.g. "Sultan").GITP Blood Bowl Manager Cup
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2017-06-24, 08:14 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
In fact, when he first came to Spain (shortly after ascending to the Imperial throne, but before being made King of Spain, IIRC) he couldn't even speak Spanish, which did not endear him to the locals, and his first order of business was a PR tour of Spain to make amends.
That said, like so many other Germans, he fell in love with the place and, while he never stayed put anywhere for very long, he did end up staying in Spain the longest and, after his resignation, retired in Spain (again, like so many other Germans after him )
The city of London is called that since Time Immemorial* ("The city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs, both by land and by water"). What we now know as London is actually the city of Westminster, who grew to encompass the city of London. Its name was changed to London relatively recently. But the City of London continues to exist inside London, as a completely separate legal entity.
Grey Wolf
*This is a legal term meaning "before the Magna Carta (1215)". Obviously, we do remember a time before it was called London, since we know its Roman name, Londinium.Last edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-06-24 at 08:17 AM.
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2017-06-24, 08:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2009
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
I wonder if City of London as a name is a Roman heritage, as it was for many Roman civitates with a bishop and a cathedral: civitas Mediolanum, civitas Coloniensis, civitas Parisium... Or if it was (re)introduced by the Normans.
Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2017-06-25, 01:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Actually, the large conurbation wasn't referred to generally as "London" until the County of London was created in 1888. Prior to that, the individual elements making up the city were still referred to separately, so you'd come from Westminster or Kensington, not London. As for the City itself, it was pretty much deserted as the Roman empire wound down and didn't get properly re-built again until the Anglo-Saxons came along, and even then, it never became the capital--that was the city of Westminster along the river, sometime in the 12th century. The place we now know as the City of London was always called London (or Londinium, in Roman times), though, even when it was being rebuilt in the 9th century.
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2017-06-25, 08:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
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- my fireball can reach you
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
In my countries language... lemme try to explain it...
we have 3 letters that my friends keep mixing up one makes A (but also e, o, i, etc ), one is H (but also Ha He Hi etc.) and another is a more accentuated A.
My friends write them all as either H or I (in the since of -ee). one is grammatically incorrect, and the other would be correct if they got the form right.
An inoffensive way that I correct my friends spelling is by repeating the word they spelled in my own sentence, but spelled correctly. If I get their prior consent, I emphasize where they got the word wrong. without it, I'm not gonna impose grammatical correctness, some of my friends are dyslexic or just don't want to have to deal with that.
example:
(talking about D&D Beyond)
--- "Is it like homebrues and such?"
"It will have options for making homebrews, but for the time being it's a very useful 5e database. Try it sometime."
-----
another example is that in the same language, we separate words as male or female in usage, so we have two similar but different words for each number for this. I get that wrong all the time, I get upset when people correct me on it.P.Z. - gamer; friend; royalty. 'Tis a pleasure.
<<Cynthia the Witch by me. she's a nice gal, I promise!
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2017-06-25, 11:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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- Dallas, TX
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
The hill there is called The Hill. The water flowing from it is called The Water. The place by the water is called Bywater. The new row is called New Row.
Somehow it just seems reasonable that the shire where all this can be found is called The Shire.
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2017-06-25, 11:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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- San Francisco Bay area
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
As I posted before, San Francisco is always "The City", to call it otherwise, or to ask "Which city?", marks you as "not from here".
The worst is to call it "Frisco", which marks you as an outsider, or as someone who grew up poor near the now shuttered shipyards (most of the people who lived there are descended from people who came for work during World War 2).
I wonder if referring to their shire as "The Shire" is a way for Tolkien to show that the Hobbits are similarly provincial?
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2017-06-25, 11:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
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- Back forty.
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
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2017-06-25, 12:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2010
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- my fireball can reach you
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Last edited by Prince Zahn; 2017-06-25 at 12:57 PM.
P.Z. - gamer; friend; royalty. 'Tis a pleasure.
<<Cynthia the Witch by me. she's a nice gal, I promise!
My player Resume, for potential DMs to read over.
My Extended Signature
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2017-06-25, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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2017-06-25, 10:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Are we sure of that? The LotR is operating under quite openly stated translation convention: the story is written by the hobbits themselves, and they translate the names of places (mostly) to what they call it. Yes, on a few occasions, we hear what the elves, dwarves, etc. call the locations, and IIRC there is a brief mention at the start of what the other races call the Shire, but otherwise, it's called the Shire because the map was drawn by [Merry|Pippin].
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
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2017-06-26, 02:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Well, I'm going by Radagast saying to Gandalf that he was told to find him at an uncouth place called Shire, but as you correctly point out, that could well be translation convention in effect since the entire story is supposedly being recorded by Frodo after his return to Bag End.
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2017-06-26, 02:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2009
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Consider that "Shire" was one of two clues that Gollum let slip, under torture, to the location of the Ring - and it was enough to lead the Nazgul to the right place. So the name must be known reasonably widely.
And Gollum had the word straight from Bilbo, so "translation effects" aren't a plausible explanation."None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
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2017-06-26, 01:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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2017-06-26, 07:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2011
- Location
- Mehville
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
I'm surprised that I haven't seen the phrases 'right now' or 'right away' mentioned here. That is, using either of the phases to mean, 'at some point in the near future' instead of 'at this very moment in time." Maybe it's just a regional thing.
Another thing that bothers me is the improper conjugation of irregular verbs. Such as the phrase, "I grinded the metal". Also, hanged/hung, singed/sang or sung, ringed/rang or rung... and so on and so on ad nauseam. While, I do understand folks who speak English as a second/third language getting irregular verbs wrong, I have less sympathy for poeple who have lived their entire lives speaking English (even though it is an overly complex, overly analytical, mishmashed hodgepodge of a language which doesn't even have a genderless pronoun to use when you are uncertain of a person's gender when speaking to them on the phone and end up inadvertently insulting them when you say sir/ma'am when you're in fact speaking to a person of the opposite gender to the one you used).
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2017-06-27, 02:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
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- In the Playground, duh.
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2017-06-27, 06:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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- The Imagination
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Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
I was pointing out that speaking in absolute terms, even when saying something generally true, and decrying fringe case exceptions (even those which are awkward or unconventional) as "wrong" or "cheating the laws of grammar" is an incorrect way of stating/approaching things. In other words: just because, idiomatically (to use your word), a certain phrasing almost always means one thing that doesn't make using it to mean something else that it could technically possibly mean but almost never does wrong. Therefore, stating that it is wrong is, in fact, wrong.
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2017-06-27, 11:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2011
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- Mehville
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Yes, I did mean to say (or type) 'title' instead of pronoun, though the point still stands that English lacks a pronoun to refer to persons of ambiguous and androgynous gender.
As for the second point you make, you speak (or type, whatever) of 'they' and it's derivatives, I suppose. Let's see how that works in an actual sentence shall we?
Bob, Mark and Alice were sitting in a room. Bob tied their shoes. Mark fixed them a drink. Alice did their makeup.
Yep, you're right, no ambiguity at all.
Edit - I do realize the argument to this is, "use the reflexive form of their", that is, themself, theirself, et cetera. Except that those forms are not accepted parts of speech, and never where. Also, if we plug them into our sentence from before we get;
Bob, Mark and Alice were sitting in a room. Bob tied theirselve's shoes. Mark fixed themself a drink. Alice did theirselv'es makeup.
Clumsy at best. Or just plain cringe-worthy.
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2017-06-27, 11:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
Every language has ambiguity - your own sentence can be made a bit less ambiguous, like so:
Bob tied their own shoes. Mark fixed them all a drink. Alice made their make up.
Yes, we still don't know whose make-up Alice fixed, but a sentence can always be crafted ambiguously, through no fault at all of the gender-neutral pronoun. The moment you put three people of the same gender (or lack thereof) in the same situation, English language struggles:
Alice, Beatrix and Chloe were sitting in a room. Chloe tied her shoes. Beatrix fixed her a drink. Alice did her makeup.
Depending on how you read it, Chloe was getting ready with the help of Alice, or else Alice and Chloe were getting ready independently (or possibly Alice was applying make up on Beatrix while she got Chloe a drink, but that is less likely contextually due to the actions implied in the verb make-up, which preclude the subject from getting drinks at the same time. Given another verb, you could end up with no idea of who did what to whom).
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-06-27 at 11:34 AM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
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2017-06-27, 11:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2012
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- In the Playground, duh.
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2017-06-27, 11:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2011
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- Mehville
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
A very astute argument, sir and or ma'am.
Let me rebut, however, that even if we dispel all ambiguity, our gender neutral 'they' still falls apart. In this example, Mark will be androgynous.
"Mark, Jenny, and Joan walked into a room. Jenny and Joan did each other's makeup while Mark put on their clothes."
Who's clothes did Mark put on? I guess we could have written 'their own clothes', but this is just a clumsy patch, an ugly language hack, if you will.
And finally, if I were asked to provide a solution, I'd say adopt a nice pronoun from another language. Perhaps, dia or hän.
The truly odd part is you that fail to comment on the meat of the discussion. The assertion I made was a simple conceit on my part used to make a point.
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2017-06-27, 12:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
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- In the Playground, duh.
Re: Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you
You have to apply the same hack to certain uses of gendered pronouns, so...
Also, English already has vaguely-accepted, if unashamedly neologistic, unambiguously singular gender neutral pronouns such as ze/zir/zir/zirs and xe/xyr/xyr/xyrs and hir/hir/hir/hirs. You can always use one of them if you really want.
Alternatively, you can ask the gender-neutral person in question what pronouns they prefer. Some will even use it/it/its/its pronouns, making the whole ordeal a lot simpler (until someone barges in insisting that humans aren't allowed to use it pronouns, like in the sentence "Oh hey, it's that guy who complains about pronouns!" or like in "That guy has a child. I hope it doesn't grow up like its father", which apparently no-one would ever say).
Well no, I think "You're making stuff up on the spot" is significantly weirder than "I'm not talking about the things you want me to talk about".Last edited by Jormengand; 2017-06-27 at 12:06 PM.