The Campaign Builder's Guild

For years, I have been using the improper English "they" as my gender neutral pronoun, in addition to using it as a plural pronoun. I felt we had a need for it in our language, especially when writing about nebulous generic things like races and classes in gaming books. Recently, on a WotC thread, someone was flipping their hat over the dual use of "he" and "she" in D&D books. The poster, whom I assume was a man, said it was awkward to read "she" all the time, and that WotC should use "they".

Seeing it from another angle made me question my position. Why was I using "they"? Was it because I wasn't referring to a specific character, so I didn't want to call attention to said non-existent character's gender? Or was I using it because I found "she" to be a speed bump for me to read.

I noticed it again with Ch30's tavern post recently. I was going to make a joke about future archaeologists being gender-less robots, but I ended up abstaining. But the point still stands: reading "she" when not referring to a specific person was strange to me. English majors will tell you that "he" and "his" are gender neutral pronouns; in Spanish, you use male pronouns unless an entire group is female (ellos for they, ellas for they if it's a group of females).

So, what is the proper thing to do? Use "They" so no one is "uncomfortable"? Or should we be fair and use both pronouns, alternating if not referring to a specific character (the class write-ups in 3E referenced the gender of the iconics mind you), so that anyone who is going to be uncomfortable will be equally uncomfortable?

And as a light-hearted aside, what should the different gendered names for the traditional fantasy races be? Humans are Man and Woman; assuming that Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, and Gnome are all generic race names and not the name of one gender or another.

The Lexicon Valley podcast did a great show recently about this exact issue; I recommend it.

QuoteEnglish majors will tell you that "he" and "his" are gender neutral pronouns;

That's the same argument I made for a long time. It's also a pretty lousy argument. English is sorely in need of a genderless third-person singular pronoun set, certainly. But that's not a good reason to start pretending that very obviously gendered pronouns are the genderless pronouns we need.

It's all well and good to proclaim the strict adherence to (archaic) grammar standards of a construction like "I wonder which student left his book over there" and claiming that "his" obviously refers to the book of any student, male or no, who owns said abandoned book. But you'd be basically asking male students to be labeled with the male pronoun "his" (no big deal, this happens daily), and female students to also be labeled with the male pronoun "his" (what if "his" book is Jane's book?) which is damned weird and actually incredibly insulting especially when you start to unpack the extended implications of this supposedly "gender neutral" pronoun. ("Don't like being misgendered? Better study your grammar, ladies, if only you knew more about English you'd get why I'm totally correct in referring to you with male pronouns!")

All artificial constructions are either hideous frankensteins ("he/she", "s/he", etc.) goofy novelties (the "thon" I gleefully used in the Tavern, the unpronounceable space-age-looking "xe", etc.) and I can't really see any of them gaining traction. I think the best, most elegant solution is to go with the crowd and adopt "they" for singular use when you want to avoid specifying gender, because it's what most people automatically do anyway, and that's the mechanism that makes languages changes. (Even if you want to call it wrong now ["It's a plural pronoun, not a singular one!"], you can't fight a tidal wave. It won't be wrong for long.)

Quotesomeone was flipping their hat over the dual use of "he" and "she" in D&D books. The poster, whom I assume was a man, said it was awkward to read "she" all the time,

This clownboat needs to unpack his privilege already, even if we're only talking grammar.

QuoteSo, what is the proper thing to do? Use "They" so no one is "uncomfortable"? Or should we be fair and use both pronouns, alternating if not referring to a specific character (the class write-ups in 3E referenced the gender of the iconics mind you), so that anyone who is going to be uncomfortable will be equally uncomfortable?

I mean, I've already been over some of my reasons for advocating "they", but that's not really at issue here. The issue here is a weird grammar maneuver that is seldom encountered, but was used in that book for whatever reason-- writing about a whole group in terms of a specific individual example. It'd be like if I wanted to write a primer on lawyers, and I briefly mentioned in passing that my friend Sandra is a lawyer, and then I went on at length for pages without ever actually mentioning Sandra again but clearly writing all my stuff about lawyers generally with a specific example in mind. ("When a lawyer goes to court to defend her case, she does a great deal of preparatory research on which to base her eloquent arguments....") (I'm using a female example here so you don't think I'm just using "he" as if it were genderless, as discussed above.) That's a really unusual way to try to explain something and I think it's a great way to invite confusion, so there are a lot of reasons to advocate against it.

Frankly, I think any male who claims to be made uncomfortable by reading female pronouns used in the generic sense is being ridiculous and should be told to get real already, and that it is a hilarious lack of perspective to complain about pronoun injustice in this context while, conversely, women are still being told to accept male pronouns used in the generic sense as right and correct and totally fine, like this arbitrary choice is a fundamental support of proper language, the only thing holding the barbarians at bay. It's silly and this dude should feel slightly ashamed, certainly.

Hell, I have typed a ton of words already and I haven't even touched the whole issue of non-binary gender. (Oh wait, yes I have. Alternating he and "she", or using "s/he" or whatever, doesn't address it. Using "they" does. So use "they.")

The proper thing to do is to avoid all gender pronouns in writing if a reference is to an indefinite group. That is very difficult to do, but it can be avoided in technical writing and I believe that at least in my professional career I have avoided it.

In speaking where it is more difficult to carefully construct sentences on the fly it would seem to be fine for a female speaker to use "she" or a male speaker using "he" or vice versa for each. For on the fly decisions, it's up to individual preference regarding which pronoun to employ if the speakers intend to avoid "they".

re: " "I wonder which student left his book over there" a"

I might go with: "Which student left a book over there?" or "Which student left the book over there?" or "I wonder which student left that book over there?" or "I wonder which student left a book over there?"

I support using they, though, as you stated, as in "I wonder which student left their book over there".

LD, I had never thought of simple sentence construction changes. And LC, your abdication for the singular genderless use of "they" was potent.

I just use Thon. 

M.

English generally pushes a speaker to use "he", "it" or "they" as gender neutral terms. None of these are really acceptable as the first is gendered, the second has connotations of objectification and the last is plural. Honestly, if anything will catch on, it will be Thon. I shall endeavor to use it more often.

Having a setting in which a major race is genderless and individuals are referred to without exception as "it" has made me come to loathe that word with all of my being.  "They" is the least confusing alternative, and it's already in common usage anyway.  I'm not really sure what would happen if I sent a letter or turned in a paper that used "xe" or "thon" but I surmise it would end up either in the trash or on the office bulletin board for coworkers to jeer at.

I remember being surprised when I got the D&D 3rd edition books and found that they (or at least some of them, I don't recall) were written with "she" as the standard pronoun, but only because it's seldom done.  It's not how I write because I'm too used to "he," but I really don't understand how anyone could be seriously offended by that or claim that it's "awkward."  "It" would be awkward because of confusion with other objects in the sentence; "she" is not awkward at all so long as they keep the usage consistent, which they did.

Nuchachos!

M.

I have nothing to say on the matter that the inestimable Steven Pinker doesn't say better.

Quote from: Ch30
I just use Thon.

I don't believe anyone really does, except as a joke.

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

Quote from: Ch30
I just use Thon.

I don't believe anyone really does, except as a joke.

I do.

M.

Have you used that term in all of your threads? :p Or is that a recent phenomena?

Quote from: Luminous Crayon

Quote from: Ch30
I just use Thon.

I don't believe anyone really does, except as a joke.

Thon does.

In a worldbuilding context I always use the pronouns that best represent the sex-dynamics within the setting. If the predominant culture favours sex-neutral pronouns I use "they". I have similarly adopted a set of sex-neutral terms of authority which are used in most of my settings: monarch or diarch (king/queen), hierarch (lord/lady; prince/princess), autarch (self-governed being; god), panarch (emperor/empress), and anarch (one who claims self-governance but cannot enforce it).