Pronouns in Account Bio

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Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by PRINCE WILLIAM » Sat Apr 30, 2022 7:09 pm

In Greek, the countries are female too. We'd say her army or her capital city etc. Cities and states too but rivers are males!
Now, in Greek dog is a male, and the cat is a female. In ancient Greek was the same.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by GracchusBabeuf » Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:23 am

MerryBBuck wrote:
Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:00 am
GracchusBabeuf wrote:
Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:34 am
gimix wrote:
Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm
@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).
Nouns aren't really gendered in English. Even if they have a technical gender it doesn't have any effect on speech, since "the" is the same no matter what.
I agree. In my native English, I normally hear the "neuter" pronoun 'it' for all countries. I have heard "she" used for countries, cities, and states, but very rarely, and there's always an emotional or poetic context. I've never heard a country referred to as "he".

Another place gender creeps into my English is with some animals. I often hear (and say) the pronoun "he" for a dog when I don't know the dog's actual gender, and similarly "she" for a cat. Maybe that's just me.
Definitely a poetic context for countries being "she", and also boats for some reason. Some countries are referred to as the "fatherland" (e.g. Germany), while for others it's the "motherland" (e.g. Russia, but I've also seen that referred to as the fatherland).

I have had a similar experience. I find that it is common for people over the age of ~50 to refer to dogs as "he" and cats as "she" no matter what their actual sex is. It is interesting to hear that this is something you've experienced as well.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by MerryBBuck » Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:00 am

GracchusBabeuf wrote:
Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:34 am
gimix wrote:
Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm
@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).
Nouns aren't really gendered in English. Even if they have a technical gender it doesn't have any effect on speech, since "the" is the same no matter what.
I agree. In my native English, I normally hear the "neuter" pronoun 'it' for all countries. I have heard "she" used for countries, cities, and states, but very rarely, and there's always an emotional or poetic context. I've never heard a country referred to as "he".

Another place gender creeps into my English is with some animals. I often hear (and say) the pronoun "he" for a dog when I don't know the dog's actual gender, and similarly "she" for a cat. Maybe that's just me.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by GracchusBabeuf » Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:34 am

gimix wrote:
Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm
@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).

So the correct way of speaking would be to always use feminine pronouns, something like "If France moves her army to Burgundy I will be mad at her" :?:
Nouns aren't really gendered in English. Even if they have a technical gender it doesn't have any effect on speech, since "the" is the same no matter what.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Ginge86 » Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:05 pm

Everybody knows that all of the players are male, except England of coarse. Being pink, they are clearly female.
Why complicate an easy system? :-)

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Jamiet99uk » Wed Apr 27, 2022 5:42 pm

How many Klingon players are currently members of this site?

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by MerryBBuck » Wed Apr 27, 2022 5:21 pm

The Klingon language has no gender pronouns. There are also just two categories of nouns: living things and dead things.

"If France moves her army to Burgundy I will be mad at her" would be "HoH vIraS". Klingon lacks nuance, so if you translate that back into English, it would be "Let's kill France."

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Octavious » Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:56 pm

I think with English as soon as you start talking of a "correct" way of doing anything you're on dangerous ground. Leave blind adherence to linguist rules to the French. I reckon the only thing about English over which there's near universal agreement is that the Yanks do it wrong.

France, for sure, has a definite female feel. Russia too, but in a distinctly Babushka kind of way. Germany far less so somehow, and Belgium is more of an "it".

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Doom427 » Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:41 pm

gimix wrote:
Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm
@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).

So the correct way of speaking would be to always use feminine pronouns, something like "If France moves her army to Burgundy I will be mad at her" :?:
I think Germany is male, but for all the others in game this should work. If moderators can put a message in every game, I'd appreciate this becoming the standard. :-)
Something like "Germany is a boy, everyone else is a girl. If you mess up you're banned" should work.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by gimix » Wed Apr 27, 2022 2:21 pm

@native speakers... someone once told me that all country names are feminine in English (this is not the case in other languages: in Italian for instance Galles [Wales] is masculine while Scozia [Scotland] is feminine).

So the correct way of speaking would be to always use feminine pronouns, something like "If France moves her army to Burgundy I will be mad at her" :?:

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by dargorygel » Mon Apr 25, 2022 10:32 pm

Octavious wrote:
Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:22 pm
Fair enough. It'll be interesting to see how much demand there is
Aye

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Yonni » Mon Apr 25, 2022 8:10 pm

At the beginning of a press game, a default message in the global chat saying simply "We encourage our users to share their preferred pronouns for this game" or something like that would be helpful.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Octavious » Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:22 pm

Fair enough. It'll be interesting to see how much demand there is

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by dargorygel » Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:03 pm

Octavious wrote:
Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:00 pm
dargorygel wrote:
Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:10 pm
similar to name
I was unaware that the membership were encouraged to share their names either. Is that something that is also being considered? I confess I rather enjoyed the ability to create whatever persona you wished without any of the intrusive a/s/l? questions you were pestered with on things like Yahoo Pool (for those who remember such things).

I would be in favour of the site continuing to default to anonymity rather than the implication that giving personal data was something you had to opt out of.
.
Not at all... random fill in example

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Octavious » Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:00 pm

dargorygel wrote:
Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:10 pm
similar to name
I was unaware that the membership were encouraged to share their names either. Is that something that is also being considered? I confess I rather enjoyed the ability to create whatever persona you wished without any of the intrusive a/s/l? questions you were pestered with on things like Yahoo Pool (for those who remember such things).

I would be in favour of the site continuing to default to anonymity rather than the implication that giving personal data was something you had to opt out of.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Jamiet99uk » Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:29 pm

Yeah the point is that over on the right hand side of your forum posts where it currently reads:

Dargorygel
Site Moderator
[Comedy Cube]

It would optionally add something like this:

Dargorygel
(He / Him)
Site Moderator
[Comedy Cube]

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by dargorygel » Mon Apr 25, 2022 5:10 pm

Octavious wrote:
Mon Apr 25, 2022 3:27 pm
I'm a tad confused. I thought we'd been able to put whatever information we wished to share about ourselves in the comments section of our profile for many years. Is that not still the case?

For anonymous games obviously anonymity trumps all. If you're worried about using the wrong pronoun and for some reason find asking difficult then the obvious solution seems to simply avoid them. If you want to refer to the French player, for example, you can simply refer to them as France.
I think that the suggestion urges the site to include a place on the 'form' for such info... similar to name. Of course folk could just include it in the comments... but few do.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Octavious » Mon Apr 25, 2022 3:27 pm

I'm a tad confused. I thought we'd been able to put whatever information we wished to share about ourselves in the comments section of our profile for many years. Is that not still the case?

For anonymous games obviously anonymity trumps all. If you're worried about using the wrong pronoun and for some reason find asking difficult then the obvious solution seems to simply avoid them. If you want to refer to the French player, for example, you can simply refer to them as France.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by Doom427 » Mon Apr 25, 2022 2:08 pm

GracchusBabeuf wrote:
Mon Apr 25, 2022 1:02 am
It would probably be best if it was just normalized to say what pronouns you prefer at the beginning of the game.
Only issue with this in anon games is anyone not using he/him will be easy to figure out and find their public profile. Having something in profile though would be great for public games.

Re: Pronouns in Account Bio

by DarthPorg36 » Mon Apr 25, 2022 1:26 pm

I agree with this. As a guy, I generally default to using he/him, but I try to use they/them as to not offend anyone. It would make it easier to clarify who we're talking to and take away the awkward what-are-their-pronouns? moment

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