Took you long enough.

And, jbalcorn, it should be "her", because in English, feminine is gender-neutral.

No, masculine is gender neutral in English, or at least it was. "He" and "his " were often used to represent both sexes in legal documents up to the 60s.

Using "their" wouldn't be grammatically correct. We use it a lot so we don't notice in conversation, but technically it's wrong.

The overwhelming majority of us are guys anyhow.

Where did you get the idea that feminine is gender neutral? That's absolutely false.

Centuries of usage have English speakers using the masculine when gender is uncertain. It's only since the 1970s that we have become sensitive to this as a gender bias issue.

'Man' 'Mankind' were not words intended to denigrate women. In fact, it wasn't even considered, which is of course the whole point.

I'm not arguing that there is no gender bias. I'm just pointing out that the idea that feminine is neutral is patently wrong.

"he" is the correct usage according to technical english. To be 'politically' correct, the site would conform to a very small minority opinion and do what the creators of the universal Bible did and not use it/their/he, but use "he/she" for every time "he" was used before.

I think this is wrong and promotes transgenderedness!!1!one

something doesn't have to be intended to oppress people, in order to oppress them.

re: their - language changes. most people accept their as a singular gender neutral pronoun, and grammatical rules will eventually catch up. none of yall are using thee or thou, and not long ago, it was grammatically incorrect to do anything but.

I hope none of the developers waste their time on this non-issue. And sometimes I wonder if Sicarius realizes how similar he is to Diplomate1824.

I don't really see any problem with using "his," "her," or "their." English doesn't have a gender neutral pronoun, so I don't really think that the use of "his" is meant to be sexist. No matter what solution you use, someone doesn't like it. Besides, weren't all of the leaders of the countries in diplomacy male?

Well, on "thee" and "thou" that's wrong too. English used to have a formal and familiar pronouns. "You" was formal and "thou" or"thee" was familiar depending on context. German still makes this distinction.

Sure language changes, but it hasn't yet and using "their" is still technically wrong.

"Where did you get the idea that feminine is gender neutral? That's absolutely false. "

I don't know what language you're speaking, but I'm guessing American. I was referring to English. You know, the language they speak in England.

But feminine isn't gender neutral in English, certainly not the Queen's English.

Where did you get the idea that feminine is gender neutral? I've never seen it used that way anywhere.

I like the the monkey bottom's.

Officially, it is. Not that anyone does that, even the grammar people (I call them that because I'm not sure how to spell "grammarians"), although I sometimes do it just to annoy people.

You can see the traces of that old rule in that countries are still called "she", which, despite sounding quite weird, is somehow correct. Although, yes, for people they used the masculine from 1500-ish to 1970.

It's very different to refer to feminine as gender neutral than to say countries are referred to as "she."

If I had to guess, that's probably more of a holdover from when English nouns had genders than the feminine being genuinely gender neutral.

I'm pretty sure that the masculine is neutered in English. it makes some logical sense as "female" has a prefix and "male" is plain/neutral.

Most men have been neutered in America. Not sure about England. :-)

But seriously, masculine was used not because it is actually gender netral, but because the language was sexist which reflected the society for hundreds of years. It just wasn't even considered to be an issue, because Men were all that mattered. Even in 1700's America, all MEN are created equal. It wasn't until the 18th amendment that women were considered to be part of that.

But again, feminine is not gender neutral in English, American, Australian or in any other part of the world where the reach of Imperial England stamped her imprint. And yes, it's her - Brittania is female.

@Invictus: You're probably right; I guess that would be most of the reason behind it. Remember when the official language of England was French? Those 600 years were among the worst the world has ever seen...

@jbalcorn: No, it's not that most American men have already been neutered. It's some odd genetic (although recent studies suggest a correlation with culture or something) disease where one's reproductive organs spontaneously combust at age nineteen. Before that, most Americans have plenty of children.

of course it's a non-issue. if you're a male.
if it said she I guarantee we would hear a lot more complaining.

you're right.
male is gender neutral.
like white is race neutral.
like straight is sexuality neutral.
and so on.
that which is better is more natural. the default, the invisible.
just because that's how it is, doesn't mean that's how it should be.

but really, that little gamemaster thing is not important. i mean, it's annoying, but not super important. sexism in diplomacy is about a lot more than that.

djbent, thank you.

I didnt say it was really important.
but I imagine its a 10 minute fix, and that it should be included in the next update. not that zomg wtf it needz 2 b changed now

"of course it's a non-issue. if you're a male.
if it said she I guarantee we would hear a lot more complaining."

I disagree. "He" "She" and "They" in this context are all intended to be gender neutral, and I wouldn't mind any of them.

"but I imagine its a 10 minute fix, and that it should be included in the next update."

What would you consider a fix? Change it to "they" and its grammatically incorrect, change it to "she" and its really no better than "he". Do you have a solution?

you could re-word it so it doesnt use any of them.
or use the screen name
or country name.

idk

I'm talking about words and their origins, not society. This is a non-issue because it is correct and right to have it as is, not because I am male. Language exists to serve people and foster understanding... using "his" in this instance is the understood way of communicating the idea.

You're right that it's not really important but you are too hasty to call it a "fix".

@djbent: Male may be gender neutral despite the world's population having a female majority, but white is not race neutral. The difference is too big there.

@Sicarius: How about something like this?
"Austria has submitted a vote for a [pause, draw, etc. Remaining: [remaining powers]."
"Austria has withdrawn a vote for a [pause, draw, etc]. Remaining: [remaining powers]."

aoe3rules, the feminine used to describe countries and naval ships and whatnot is a holdover from when English was but cobbled Frenchish and Germanic languages and most nouns had an associated gender.

I'd support a change to "their", but I must say that feminism has far more important fronts than the Gamemaster message on a Diplomacy site. While "their" is strictly grammatically incorrect because it implies a plural, in many languages, including French, from which English shares a common ancestor, the plural is often used to imply a formal singular, such as with vous vs. tu. I'm not sure, but could the Queen's usage of "we" be a carry-over of this?

The masculine is historically gender neutral, but for patriarchal reasons. Honestly, I think I'm as annoyed as any of you with rigorous demands for PC, but it's only annoying because we've been raised with the non-PC terms. It still represents very little effort on our part, and it certainly could help combat unconscious denigration of women. I still think that more concrete movements are far more efficacious. I suppose it depends on how much you think language affects us.

Yeah, and that's in Spanish, too - tu and ud, when pluralised, both become uds. Well, except for Castillian Spanish, where tu becomes vos.

No:

they, their, and them are correctly used in singular cases where the sex of the individual is either unknown or not considered important.

And, usage always overrules grammar. Grammar is descriptive, the mistake is to try to make it proscriptive. The Oxford Dictionary of English Usage finally bowed to these simple truths twenty years ago when it formally admitted the correct singular uses of these pronouns. At the time, the OUP nodded in the direction of feminists for pursuing this issue so consistently even though the general public had been using these words in this way for a long long time already.

Oh, and as for Sicarius, he is winding us up...

I wouldn't take his interest in details like pronouns too seriously. Somewhere else in this Forum he claims that his people have lived in a state of anarchy for thousands of years... "All Indians and no Chiefs"? To reword the famous expression.

And before anyone kicks off on usage of the word Indian, I am deliberately misquoting a very well-known saying.

Flashman, no, you're not. The term was misused in the original quote, therefore, your usage is not misquoted at all.