Difference between revisions of "Talk:Crisis"
| Line 7: | Line 7: | ||
Ohh thank you that was very very helpful ! ;) | Ohh thank you that was very very helpful ! ;) | ||
| + | |||
| + | Personally I find the use of his/her an acceptable replacement in this situation. I realize its not exactly good for the flow in a story, but as this is an encyclopedia type situation it works. Its intention is to let the reader decide in an instant what their preference for the rest of the situation will be. Whether it be a he or she, after the reader makes that choice they auto fill all the rest... it may be overly politically correct, but i think its a valid option. Either way though^^ [[User:Wowandwas|Wowandwas]] 23:13, 5 June 2007 (PDT) | ||
Revision as of 22:13, 5 June 2007
In regards to "his/her" and the English language. The English language "technically" does not have a gender neutral pronoun for single people (a pronoun being He, Him, She, Her, It, They(for groups), Them(for groups), etc.) The "proper" way to refer to a person who's gender is unknown is with the masculine(male) pronoun: "He". For example: "Alice called up her friend Sue and told her that she would be bringing a friend to the party. Alice replied "Who is he?")
This is somewhat sexist and was not always the case. "He" became the "proper" pronoun somewhere near Victorian times, but recently (the past 10-15 years, maybe even longer) there has been a "movement" towards a gender neutral pronoun as a replacement. Because they already existed and sounded fine the pronouns for groups were adopted: They, Them, Their, It, etc. This may lead to a little confusion in some sentences, and we still don't have a good replacement for "he" when we are referring to a stranger with unknown gender in the third person. For example: "The stranger paused in the alley for a moment before HE reached for the doorknob." Since we don't have a proper replacement for "He" in this case ("It" would work but sounds very impersonal, it's like talking about this stranger as if they were a machine. "They" would also work, but it sounds a bit weird) Because of our lack of a proper pronoun for this case the sentences often get slightly rewritten to avoid the problem entirely. For example: "The stranger paused in the alley for a moment before reaching for the doorknob."
(And to think, I typed all this just to explain why I changed a few "he/she"s into "they"s, and those "he/she"s only existed because Crisis is non-discriminatory when it comes to gender; she eats EVERYBODY. :) If she were a little more selective I could have avoided this whole mess. :P ) --Oldman40k2003 21:44, 4 June 2007 (PDT)
Ohh thank you that was very very helpful ! ;)
Personally I find the use of his/her an acceptable replacement in this situation. I realize its not exactly good for the flow in a story, but as this is an encyclopedia type situation it works. Its intention is to let the reader decide in an instant what their preference for the rest of the situation will be. Whether it be a he or she, after the reader makes that choice they auto fill all the rest... it may be overly politically correct, but i think its a valid option. Either way though^^ Wowandwas 23:13, 5 June 2007 (PDT)
