Singular "They" in modern game writing

[Tweed]

God, I can't stand it. This is hilarious.

Emojiself Pronouns are a form of gender neutral neopronouns. They are similar to nounself pronouns but instead of using letters they use emojis or other pictograms. They might be used for a number of reasons, such as one liking the way the emoji looks, liking the way they may sound in their head, or because one feels the emoji describes them or reflects something about their gender well.

Spoken alternatives to the above set of emojiself pronouns could be:

Be/Berryself
Straw/Strawberryself
Fruit/Fruitself

[Oyster Sauce]

Seeing a lot of random flip-flopping between he/she and they and it's ticking me off!

[Tangerine]

Wizardry 8 did it.

[TKVNC]

This is why AI is actually good for voiceovers, just let it use the actors voice to generate a spoken name. If they're worried about people using gamer words, you can just block the obvious ones so the AI cannot say them. People will get creative, but there it is.

Full AI voicework cannot come soon enough. You don't hate voice actors enough.

Just think if we didn't live in a communist world, we could have had our characters named by NPC's and correctly called him, not a conventially ambiguous reference. Even DA:O suffers from this. It's a shame.

[Envergence]

there's a entire wiki dedicated to pronouns to clear up all this confusion.

[Sinfield]

They is plural, dems the rules.

Not quite, but the usage of singular they is so narrow that if you're using it purposely it's almost certainly wrong:

I was using it for people of unknown gender in the 90s.

The singular indefinite they was used for a person of unknown gender for a very long time. Consider:
"Someone left their wallet."
If you knew that it was Whiteshark's wallet, you'd say: "WhiteShark left his wallet."
The modern nu-singular they is a definite they: "WhiteShark left their wallet."

The "akshually, singular they has always been used!" crowd is purposely conflating these two.


If you're having trouble understanding the difference, know that this is something that tripped up a bunch of style guides, and not even for pozzed reasons — chicago styleguide went back and suggested against using it in the 'modern' way after first recommending to do so.
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qa ... q0018.html

---

The Builder, 1927, Volume 4

The person who lost their keys is specific, but not definite.
The reason you'd see "he/him" used in, for example, the AD&D PHB was because the reader is specific and definite. This is despite the author not knowing who the reader is, exactly. It is specific to the reader's context.

Notably it even tripped up stylistic guides who had to roll recommendations back because they realized how ******* awful it is

Sorry am I old for remembering when you could just use "he" for someone of uncertain gender?

[WhiteShark]

Sorry am I old for remembering when you could just use "he" for someone of uncertain gender?

Not necessarily; you may just be literate.

[Roguey]

Women seethed, simps accommodated.

[Prardenciflar]

Sorry am I old for remembering when you could just use "he" for someone of uncertain gender?

Not necessarily; you may just be literate.

A fate worse than death

[Xenich]

This is unreadable.

****, that is seriously ******** and confusing as hell. These people need to be flogged.

[Prardenciflar]

I think my english class just told me to use singular they if you don't know the person's gender and left it at that, though using it as a shortcut in games to refer to the protagonist does make sense from a budget perspective.

[WhiteShark]

I think my english class just told me to use singular they if you don't know the person's gender and left it at that, though using it as a shortcut in games to refer to the protagonist does make sense from a budget perspective.

Ok, you have me curious and furious. English class in a natively English-speaking country, or as a foreign language? It's wrong either way, but I need to know exactly how screwed posterity is.

[Prardenciflar]

I think my english class just told me to use singular they if you don't know the person's gender and left it at that, though using it as a shortcut in games to refer to the protagonist does make sense from a budget perspective.

Ok, you have me curious and furious. English class in a natively English-speaking country, or as a foreign language? It's wrong either way, but I need to know exactly how screwed posterity is.

USA, born and raised. School didn't have the greatest funding but most of the teachers tried their best.

[rusty_shackleford]

How do they write this and not realize what the issue is???

Selection_016.webp

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Sorry am I old for remembering when you could just use "he" for someone of uncertain gender?

Not necessarily; you may just be literate.

So, if write about somebody of uncertain sex, I should use "he"? Can you, guys clear this out to me, please?

[methoxetamine]

Sorry am I old for remembering when you could just use "he" for someone of uncertain gender?

Not necessarily; you may just be literate.

So, if write about somebody of uncertain sex, I should use "he"? Can you, guys clear this out to me, please?

We've all been using discretion our whole lives and had no problems. Does it sound like a masculine figure, ie in rustys above image? "Maskless One landing attacks on enemies" should default to male in your mind as attacking enemies is a masculine act. If by some small chance it ended up not being a male, it can be corrected. Saying their is just goofy since it reeks of being intentionally used for the purpose of pushing the ****** agenda

[Cedric]

How do they write this and not realize what the issue is???

Huh? Why is he charging up the enemies?

[maidenhaver]

Literacy was a trap, the written word is a prison.

[Stack of Turtles]

Sorry am I old for remembering when you could just use "he" for someone of uncertain gender?

Not necessarily; you may just be literate.

So, if write about somebody of uncertain sex, I should use "he"? Can you, guys clear this out to me, please?

Yes. Is that somehow not clear? Yes, that's what you do. That's been the standard in English for all time.

[Oyster Sauce]

Not necessarily; you may just be literate.

So, if write about somebody of uncertain sex, I should use "he"? Can you, guys clear this out to me, please?

Yes. Is that somehow not clear? Yes, that's what you do. That's been the standard in English for all time.

Nah. Even just best guessing is better. Nobody is going to he/him a nurse or a ballet dancer.

[Stack of Turtles]

So, if write about somebody of uncertain sex, I should use "he"? Can you, guys clear this out to me, please?

Yes. Is that somehow not clear? Yes, that's what you do. That's been the standard in English for all time.

Nah. Even just best guessing is better. Nobody is going to he/him a nurse or a ballet dancer.

Traditionally, a nurse and a ballet dancer are not of uncertain sex.

[Oyster Sauce]

Yes. Is that somehow not clear? Yes, that's what you do. That's been the standard in English for all time.

Nah. Even just best guessing is better. Nobody is going to he/him a nurse or a ballet dancer.

Traditionally, a nurse and a ballet dancer are not of uncertain sex.

Unfortunately for you they're almost all women now

[Stack of Turtles]

Nah. Even just best guessing is better. Nobody is going to he/him a nurse or a ballet dancer.

Traditionally, a nurse and a ballet dancer are not of uncertain sex.

Unfortunately for you they're almost all women now

That means you can call them "she". It isn't complicated.
Nobody says you have to pretend not to know someone's sex when it's obviously likely.

[Oyster Sauce]

Traditionally, a nurse and a ballet dancer are not of uncertain sex.

Unfortunately for you they're almost all women now

That means you can call them "she".

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

[maidenhaver]

Unfortunately for you they're almost all women now

That means you can call them "she".

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

Its default, the ballet part is an exception.

[Stack of Turtles]

Unfortunately for you they're almost all women now

That means you can call them "she".

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

He is the default for someone of unknown sex. A person's sex is not unknown if you know she's a ballerina.

[methoxetamine]

That means you can call them "she".

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

He is the default for someone of unknown sex. A person's sex is not unknown if you know she's a ballerina.

Semantics but nobody said ballerina before, they said ballet dancer. Obviously it still should be assumed female but it's a lot different, though I would argue "ballet dancer" is woke to begin with and ballerina should be standard

[Oyster Sauce]

That means you can call them "she".

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

Its default, the ballet part is an exception.

If you can best guess a dancer you can best guess almost anything else, or, better yet, just avoid the descriptor in the first place so you don't look dumb when you're wrong.

[Stack of Turtles]

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

Its default, the ballet part is an exception.

If you can best guess a dancer you can best guess almost anything else, or, better yet, just avoid the descriptor in the first place so you don't look dumb when you're wrong.

Don't be so insecure. Saying "they" makes you look dumb, guessing wrong doesn't.

[Stack of Turtles]

True! So "he" isn't the default for an unknown person.

He is the default for someone of unknown sex. A person's sex is not unknown if you know she's a ballerina.

Semantics but nobody said ballerina before, they said ballet dancer. Obviously it still should be assumed female but it's a lot different, though I would argue "ballet dancer" is woke to begin with and ballerina should be standard

They're synonyms.