The Mothership reported the winner of the Mythic Championship in a long report. The entire report avoided mentioning the gender of the winner... (but did leak out the gender of the 2nd place).
I read it twice. How did they do it so naturally? I want to be able to do it also. It is not easy in English.
I am not discussing whether this is good or bad. Politics stay out of this thread.
I don't really think that is that hard in English. You just have to avoid the 3rd person singular pronounces and you are done. Instead of he, she, it you simply describe that person: the champion or the runner-up or the contestant.
My native language is naturally gendered. In German the table is male and the clock is female because of reasons... So I think it is rather trivial to report without gender in English.
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Drop your knees to the floor
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
I believe it was because the winner of the Mythic Championship Cleveland identified as non binary, so they were describing them using "they"/"them" rather than he or she all weekend.
I don't really think that is that hard in English. You just have to avoid the 3rd person singular pronounces and you are done. Instead of he, she, it you simply describe that person: the champion or the runner-up or the contestant.
It's worth pointing out that the singular "they" has been in use for centuries and has been used by such writers as Chaucer and Shakespeare. Opposition to it largely dates back to the 19th century with linguistic prescriptivists that wanted to impose arbitrary, Latin-like rules on the English language (such as by saying you shouldn't split infinitives in English solely because you can't split them in Latin—it was a very elitist approach to things). So when it comes to non-binary people or just people where gender isn't known or assumed, English has had the tools to handle those cases longer than Modern English has been a language.
It's so messed up that, unlike how MTGS switched to the singular "they" instead of using "he or she" simply because I decided inclusivity was more important than linguistic prescriptivism back when I was Content Manager, Wizards only switched because the Chicago Manual of Style finally did. Make of this what you will.
Its pretty annoying to be gentle, and downright offensive to use the "they".
I would never do that, out of respect to the people.
----
Anyway, any more specifics are doomed to get out of hand very quickly.
BTW they very often failed to use the proper pronounce during the stream as expected, people just use "he/she" all the time and do so every time.
Its simply impossible to force such a trivial pronounce change , and even more disgusting to punish people for not doing so.
WotC wants to ponder to that ideology, so theres that, its not like they do it "naturally" , the business simply tells the workers they HAVE to.
I mean, they just decided to go with it, on cards they also use "they" instead of "he or she" wording.
I still think people that want to have a special pronounce should wear some kind of reminder for that (like a nameplate, so people dont have to awkwardly ask them all the time, works a lot easier, people do that at my work place and it works flawless).
I would never do that, out of respect to the people.
You are literally being the opposite of respectful. All you're really saying here is that since you personally don't like things such as the singular "they" (which, to be fair, has only been used by complete nobodies like Chaucer and Shakespeare) so you'll insist on what you think someone else's pronouns should be even when they specifically ask otherwise.
WotC wants to ponder to that ideology
...
I mean, they just decided to go with it, on cards they also use "they" instead of "he or she" wording.
Blame the University of Chicago Press if you want to make an issue out of this. Wizards adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style and the reason they switched to "they" instead of "he or she" is because the style guide changed.
Your feelings don't trump how language works. "They" is reentering the common vernacular and complaining about it just makes you look like those 19th century prescriptivists who said, "I don't care how people actually talk. My feelings about how people should talk are more important."
I would never do that, out of respect to the people.
You are literally being the opposite of respectful. All you're really saying here is that since you personally don't like things such as the singular "they" (which, to be fair, has only been used by complete nobodies like Chaucer and Shakespeare) so you'll insist on what you think someone else's pronouns should be even when they specifically ask otherwise.
This. I know non-binary people who prefer that others use "they".
I still think people that want to have a special pronounce should wear some kind of reminder for that (like a nameplate, so people dont have to awkwardly ask them all the time, works a lot easier, people do that at my work place and it works flawless).
Yes, just label all the "other" for everyone to see. That has worked very well in the past. Holy ****.
I honestly think that the singular 'they' is a really unintrusive way to handle things. However I learned English without the singular they, so it is still nothing I use naturally and only written...
I mean in spoken English I usually fall into the bad habit of assigning the proper German pronounces like in "My computer is acting up, I think he caught a virus."
I actually don't think it so messed up that MTGS was faster then Wizards. That is the strength of being small and nimble. You can implement changes much faster. I would think that Hasbro has a company wide rule to use the Chicago Manual of Style, so of course you would have to wait that the MoS implements the change before you can go forward with that yourself. That is pretty natural in large company structure. Change is slow.
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Drop your knees to the floor
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
I mean in spoken English I usually fall into the bad habit of assigning the proper German pronounces like in "My computer is acting up, I think he caught a virus.
Americans will do that as well, but it's usually "she". Larger machines like boats, ships, cars, airplanes and even motorcycles will usually be referenced with a feminine pronoun. Even if the ship, for example, is named after a male.
I have never heard of much smaller machines like a computer referred to with a feminine or a masculine pronoun unless its exterior is distinctly masculine, such as Data from Star Trek or feminine like Chi from Chobits.
I don't know if other English speaking countries will do that but I assume they do.
My mother understands Russian and Latin and this sort of nomenclature perplexes her for some reason. I can't really repeat exactly what she says about it but it effectively amounts to Rule 34.
It can be a challenge in writing doing something that you aren't used to. Rick Riordan in his Mangus Chase and the Norse gods series has a wonderfully written ( I think,but i'm no expert) gender fluid character.
I used to balk at using singular they/them due to grammatical correctness until I met and befriended a nonbinary individual who preferred they/them pronouns, at which point I accustomed myself to it in the name of respect.
So I finally got to read the article. I didn't really notice the "non-binary nature" when describing Autumn Burchett. I actually had to Google the name and find Autumn's Twitter account to figure out where this even came from. I'm also going to be honest here and admit that last sentence required two edits for reasons...
I'm not going to get into my own opinion of this matter, what I think of Autumn Burchett, or how this really influences Magic. I'm more interested in the deck list.
English still needs a better single person, non-gendered pronoun. "They" is definitely acceptable but it occasionally leads to weird grammar and/or ambiguity if you fully replace he/she with "they" in all contexts, e.g. “Robert put their cards in sleeves” or “Brenda thought they were at 3 life.”
Honestly, it drove me mad that the Chicago Manual of Style didn't accept They/their it just added so many unnecessary words onto cards having to add "his or her" all the time when "their" would have been so simple to use on the cards.
I have no trouble using They/their, feels perfectly normal English to me. I was using it whenever I wanted to talk about Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
The thing about Pronouns is if you are just talking it doesn't actually matter because if you were talking about someone with them present you just use thier name and if you are talking about them behind their back then they'll never know what pronoun you use.
I have to admit, as an English born native, with a classical education (I did more periods of Latin than English at school), and as a teacher, I won't accept singular "they" in work produced by my students. A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
I am aware of archaic uses of "they", but they are archaic. "Egregious" used to mean outstanding, not outstandingly bad. If I indicated a person's work was egregious, people would assume that I was using the modern rather than eighteenth century meaning. Language evolves, of course, but in this case it becomes confusing to use sungular they in the context of longer sentences involving both individuals and groups.
I would rather a gender neutral personal pronoun be created; many years ago in the UK the pronoun "ze" was pushed as an alternative to he/she, which makes far more sense, as it has no masculine/feminine connotations.
I don't really mind what Americans do, of course. Many of our words are rather stupidly francisised by addition of "u", hence our colour and Anerican "color", an attempt to make our language more sophisticated in days where emulating the French was de regeur, so we already have divergence before we even consider our use of S over Z in words ending in "ised".
Well you could have "he, she, it" and go with "it" as a neutral one, and that would work well.
But someone will argue "it" is somehow degrading, like "they" is any better.
The vast majority of people can simply avoid having to bother with pronounce, and even the vast majority of transgender people will simply settle with "he/she", any other pronounce will always draw a lot of attention, and that means a lot of negative attention too ; so its much easier to simply avoid having to bother with that all together, its simply not worth it.
Well you could have "he, she, it" and go with "it" as a neutral one, and that would work well.
But someone will argue "it" is somehow degrading, like "they" is any better.
The vast majority of people can simply avoid having to bother with pronounce, and even the vast majority of transgender people will simply settle with "he/she", any other pronounce will always draw a lot of attention, and that means a lot of negative attention too ; so its much easier to simply avoid having to bother with that all together, its simply not worth it.
unless of course, someone prefers a particular pronoun and doesn't find it degrading at all. In which case it's on you to respect them enough to use it.
that's the bottom line. It doesn't do anyone any harm to be polite and respect people enough to do this.
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Well you could have "he, she, it" and go with "it" as a neutral one, and that would work well.
"It" is considered insulting and dehumanizing. That's also not the pronoun people ask for.
The respectful thing to do is to use the pronoun people ask for. So when they ask for "they" that means you use "they," not "it." Equivocating between something people don't ask for and something people ask for is like saying "I don't see why this deck's land base can't just be 20 Wastes" when they're trying to get the right balance of certain colour sources.
unless of course, someone prefers a particular pronoun and doesn't find it degrading at all. In which case it's on you to respect them enough to use it.
that's the bottom line. It doesn't do anyone any harm to be polite and respect people enough to do this.
As long as its a matter of being "polite" and thats all about it its one thing.
However, its not just being polite, its downright you are forced by law to do it, and NOT doing it, is not just being unpolite, its downright a crime, which means people are forced to do it, and punished if they dont.
Its a reversal of respect.
Its not a show of respect and its not earned at all.
Its a respect you force upon, which is just like the old age of kings where you chop the heads off people that dont bow before the king.
All the people should be treated equally, special rules and especially special power to a tiny minority results simply in obedience by fear of the repercussions, and not the good kind of respect that is earned.
Your argument comes down to "Its no big deal, just do it" , while the other opinion would be its a tremendously big deal, as it crosses a line of forcing people to use a kind of speech and enforcing that by punishment, which directly brands the person that stand out by taking that special right in a negative light, as some people will not like to be forced to comply if they dont do it out of themselves.
Another major issue with the pronounce is that if it bothers people, they will simply "avoid" said person to avoid bothering with the pronounce.
So if someone does not feel comfortable using "they" to address a person, or doesnt do it by mistake, they feel bad about it too, or they will even be punished for doing so ; so they naturally avoid this issue by further pushing said person out of their environment, which makes matters far worse.
Thats why my standpoint would be to out of respect NOT use a preferred-pronounce. People get the pronounce that fits their representation, the natural way a person would address anybody. In the vast majority of cases that is not a problem at all, and if it is, people that are willing to comply in the socially close range will use the special pronounce, while others will not ; no punishment, no disrespect ; happy people that can treat each other fairly and equally.
If someone asks me to insult and single out them every time i see them, its not a sign of disrespect to not do that.
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I have to admit, as an English born native, with a classical education (I did more periods of Latin than English at school), and as a teacher, I won't accept singular "they" in work produced by my students. A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
I am aware of archaic uses of "they", but they are archaic. "Egregious" used to mean outstanding, not outstandingly bad. If I indicated a person's work was egregious, people would assume that I was using the modern rather than eighteenth century meaning. Language evolves, of course, but in this case it becomes confusing to use sungular they in the context of longer sentences involving both individuals and groups.
I would rather a gender neutral personal pronoun be created; many years ago in the UK the pronoun "ze" was pushed as an alternative to he/she, which makes far more sense, as it has no masculine/feminine connotations.
I don't really mind what Americans do, of course. Many of our words are rather stupidly francisised by addition of "u", hence our colour and Anerican "color", an attempt to make our language more sophisticated in days where emulating the French was de regeur, so we already have divergence before we even consider our use of S over Z in words ending in "ised".
I know you were specifically talking about not accepting singular "they" in school work, but I think it's funny you used it yourself when talking about "a teacher" (singular) and "a schoolchild" of indeterminate gender. You can talk about archaic use all you want, but you're probably well aware that it's been reintroduced into common parlance as evident by your own use, which no longer makes it archaic.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Thats why my standpoint would be to out of respect NOT use a preferred-pronounce.
"It's respectful not to respect another's wishes"?
If someone asks me to insult and single out them every time i see them, its not a sign of disrespect to not do that.
So if I were to ask you which pronoun you wanted, have you tell me, then reply "sorry I think I'd be being disrespectful to call you that so I'm going to call you something else instead," would you agree or disagree that this would be respectful?
It's real nice how WOTC is being respectful, even if they're probably only doing it to look woke and get the queer dollar.
@TOO "all the people should be treated equally" except for the people who you're going to misgender because you know their life better than they do?
A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
I read it twice. How did they do it so naturally? I want to be able to do it also. It is not easy in English.
I am not discussing whether this is good or bad. Politics stay out of this thread.
My native language is naturally gendered. In German the table is male and the clock is female because of reasons... So I think it is rather trivial to report without gender in English.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
It's worth pointing out that the singular "they" has been in use for centuries and has been used by such writers as Chaucer and Shakespeare. Opposition to it largely dates back to the 19th century with linguistic prescriptivists that wanted to impose arbitrary, Latin-like rules on the English language (such as by saying you shouldn't split infinitives in English solely because you can't split them in Latin—it was a very elitist approach to things). So when it comes to non-binary people or just people where gender isn't known or assumed, English has had the tools to handle those cases longer than Modern English has been a language.
It's so messed up that, unlike how MTGS switched to the singular "they" instead of using "he or she" simply because I decided inclusivity was more important than linguistic prescriptivism back when I was Content Manager, Wizards only switched because the Chicago Manual of Style finally did. Make of this what you will.
I would never do that, out of respect to the people.
----
Anyway, any more specifics are doomed to get out of hand very quickly.
BTW they very often failed to use the proper pronounce during the stream as expected, people just use "he/she" all the time and do so every time.
Its simply impossible to force such a trivial pronounce change , and even more disgusting to punish people for not doing so.
WotC wants to ponder to that ideology, so theres that, its not like they do it "naturally" , the business simply tells the workers they HAVE to.
I mean, they just decided to go with it, on cards they also use "they" instead of "he or she" wording.
I still think people that want to have a special pronounce should wear some kind of reminder for that (like a nameplate, so people dont have to awkwardly ask them all the time, works a lot easier, people do that at my work place and it works flawless).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
You are literally being the opposite of respectful. All you're really saying here is that since you personally don't like things such as the singular "they" (which, to be fair, has only been used by complete nobodies like Chaucer and Shakespeare) so you'll insist on what you think someone else's pronouns should be even when they specifically ask otherwise.
Blame the University of Chicago Press if you want to make an issue out of this. Wizards adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style and the reason they switched to "they" instead of "he or she" is because the style guide changed.
Your feelings don't trump how language works. "They" is reentering the common vernacular and complaining about it just makes you look like those 19th century prescriptivists who said, "I don't care how people actually talk. My feelings about how people should talk are more important."
Yes, just label all the "other" for everyone to see. That has worked very well in the past. Holy ****.
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Sure no problem.
Top Stories of Mythic Championship
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I mean in spoken English I usually fall into the bad habit of assigning the proper German pronounces like in "My computer is acting up, I think he caught a virus."
I actually don't think it so messed up that MTGS was faster then Wizards. That is the strength of being small and nimble. You can implement changes much faster. I would think that Hasbro has a company wide rule to use the Chicago Manual of Style, so of course you would have to wait that the MoS implements the change before you can go forward with that yourself. That is pretty natural in large company structure. Change is slow.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Americans will do that as well, but it's usually "she". Larger machines like boats, ships, cars, airplanes and even motorcycles will usually be referenced with a feminine pronoun. Even if the ship, for example, is named after a male.
I have never heard of much smaller machines like a computer referred to with a feminine or a masculine pronoun unless its exterior is distinctly masculine, such as Data from Star Trek or feminine like Chi from Chobits.
I don't know if other English speaking countries will do that but I assume they do.
My mother understands Russian and Latin and this sort of nomenclature perplexes her for some reason. I can't really repeat exactly what she says about it but it effectively amounts to Rule 34.
I'm not going to get into my own opinion of this matter, what I think of Autumn Burchett, or how this really influences Magic. I'm more interested in the deck list.
I have no trouble using They/their, feels perfectly normal English to me. I was using it whenever I wanted to talk about Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
The thing about Pronouns is if you are just talking it doesn't actually matter because if you were talking about someone with them present you just use thier name and if you are talking about them behind their back then they'll never know what pronoun you use.
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R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
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I am aware of archaic uses of "they", but they are archaic. "Egregious" used to mean outstanding, not outstandingly bad. If I indicated a person's work was egregious, people would assume that I was using the modern rather than eighteenth century meaning. Language evolves, of course, but in this case it becomes confusing to use sungular they in the context of longer sentences involving both individuals and groups.
I would rather a gender neutral personal pronoun be created; many years ago in the UK the pronoun "ze" was pushed as an alternative to he/she, which makes far more sense, as it has no masculine/feminine connotations.
I don't really mind what Americans do, of course. Many of our words are rather stupidly francisised by addition of "u", hence our colour and Anerican "color", an attempt to make our language more sophisticated in days where emulating the French was de regeur, so we already have divergence before we even consider our use of S over Z in words ending in "ised".
But someone will argue "it" is somehow degrading, like "they" is any better.
The vast majority of people can simply avoid having to bother with pronounce, and even the vast majority of transgender people will simply settle with "he/she", any other pronounce will always draw a lot of attention, and that means a lot of negative attention too ; so its much easier to simply avoid having to bother with that all together, its simply not worth it.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
unless of course, someone prefers a particular pronoun and doesn't find it degrading at all. In which case it's on you to respect them enough to use it.
that's the bottom line. It doesn't do anyone any harm to be polite and respect people enough to do this.
"It" is considered insulting and dehumanizing. That's also not the pronoun people ask for.
The respectful thing to do is to use the pronoun people ask for. So when they ask for "they" that means you use "they," not "it." Equivocating between something people don't ask for and something people ask for is like saying "I don't see why this deck's land base can't just be 20 Wastes" when they're trying to get the right balance of certain colour sources.
As long as its a matter of being "polite" and thats all about it its one thing.
However, its not just being polite, its downright you are forced by law to do it, and NOT doing it, is not just being unpolite, its downright a crime, which means people are forced to do it, and punished if they dont.
Its a reversal of respect.
Its not a show of respect and its not earned at all.
Its a respect you force upon, which is just like the old age of kings where you chop the heads off people that dont bow before the king.
All the people should be treated equally, special rules and especially special power to a tiny minority results simply in obedience by fear of the repercussions, and not the good kind of respect that is earned.
Your argument comes down to "Its no big deal, just do it" , while the other opinion would be its a tremendously big deal, as it crosses a line of forcing people to use a kind of speech and enforcing that by punishment, which directly brands the person that stand out by taking that special right in a negative light, as some people will not like to be forced to comply if they dont do it out of themselves.
Another major issue with the pronounce is that if it bothers people, they will simply "avoid" said person to avoid bothering with the pronounce.
So if someone does not feel comfortable using "they" to address a person, or doesnt do it by mistake, they feel bad about it too, or they will even be punished for doing so ; so they naturally avoid this issue by further pushing said person out of their environment, which makes matters far worse.
Thats why my standpoint would be to out of respect NOT use a preferred-pronounce. People get the pronounce that fits their representation, the natural way a person would address anybody. In the vast majority of cases that is not a problem at all, and if it is, people that are willing to comply in the socially close range will use the special pronounce, while others will not ; no punishment, no disrespect ; happy people that can treat each other fairly and equally.
If someone asks me to insult and single out them every time i see them, its not a sign of disrespect to not do that.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I know you were specifically talking about not accepting singular "they" in school work, but I think it's funny you used it yourself when talking about "a teacher" (singular) and "a schoolchild" of indeterminate gender. You can talk about archaic use all you want, but you're probably well aware that it's been reintroduced into common parlance as evident by your own use, which no longer makes it archaic.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
"It's respectful not to respect another's wishes"?
So if I were to ask you which pronoun you wanted, have you tell me, then reply "sorry I think I'd be being disrespectful to call you that so I'm going to call you something else instead," would you agree or disagree that this would be respectful?
@TOO "all the people should be treated equally" except for the people who you're going to misgender because you know their life better than they do?
Language appears to have moved on.
Art is life itself.