D&D 5E Mearls' "Firing" tweet

[LordEntrails]

Empty space doesn’t count.

Have you been between San Diego and San Fran? There's not much empty space out there except Camp Pendelton north of San Diego. And it's not exactly like New England is a megacity sprawl.

Reminds me of a story when I was staying with my Grandmother as a teenager. We were going to be driving from upstate New York (Balston Spa) to Vermont (Bennington) and she was adamant that we make sure to take the short cut via Grandma Moses Road. I made sure we did. Years later I learned it saved about 1/10 of a mile. And that drive is about as long and far as I used to drive to high school every day (all urban rush hour).

TheTruSize is really cool for understanding perspective. And scale of different parts of the country or world. Especially as you move things between latitudes it adjusts. For example, Greenland (which most everyone thinks of as HUGE) to Africa;

 

[LordEntrails]

You left out 2 New England states.

Connecticut and Rhode Island are huge. I'm sure they'd fill in the gaps.

Yea, I tried adding them but then got caught up with multiple images in the post and deleted the wrong ones... Give me a minute and I will correct the post.

 

[Satyrn]

Yea, I tried adding them but then got caught up with multiple images in the post and deleted the wrong ones... Give me a minute and I will correct the post.

Yeah that wasn't really necessary. I was just trying to show off my entirely pointless knowledge. I'm Canadian, but somehow recognize the shape of New England states.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah that wasn't really necessary. I was just trying to show off my entirely pointless knowledge. I'm Canadian, but somehow recognize the shape of New England states.

Canadians- and almost everyone outside of the USA- are taught a fair amount of geography. Nooooot exactly a priority here.

While discussing geopolitics, I joked with a Canadian friend (who had just become a naturalized US citizen a few months prior) that he had to stop accurately pointing out where certain countries were or he’d be revoked and deported.

 

[gyor]

This officially the worst ENworld thread ever.

 

[BookBarbarian]

This officially the worst ENworld thread ever.

I was rather enjoying the geography discussion of this last page.

But yeah this rest of it...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This officially the worst ENworld thread ever.

Why?

We’re are making good time, neither tarrying nor running. I bet our faces are expressionless. One or more may be dressed as a cleric of some sort, and another might be dressed as a traveling drummer. The others could be peasants or serfs going from one location to another for the harvest season.

 

[ParanoydStyle]

I'll try and keep this digression brief, civil, and friendly. I don't want anyone to have hard feelings over grammar.

Well, if you insist. These from that wiki page.

• "Every one must judge according to their own feelings." — Lord Byron, Werner (1823), quoted as "Every one must judge of [sic] their own feelings."

"Every one" (everyone) is a plural noun. Byron would have written "every man must judge of his own feelings" if he meant to use the singular case.

Had the Doctor been contented to take my dining tables as any body in their senses would have done ..." — Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814);

"Any body in their senses" is again a plural, although it's kind of a crypto-plural, it still refers to a group of multiple individuals, "all sensible people". "Anybody" and "everyone" are both plural nouns. As I understand it.

"If the part deserve any comment, every considering Christian will make it to themselves as they go ..." — Daniel Defoe, The Family Instructor (1816);[54]

Same thing, "every considering Christian" is just an idiosyncratic way of rendering the plural noun "all considerate Christians"

"Every person's happiness depends in part upon the respect they meet in the world ..." — William Paley

Now here I do believe you're right, but I also do believe William Paley is (grammatically) wrong. "Every person's happiness depends in part upon the respect he or she meets in the world" would be more grammatically correct.


Digression within a digression? That is a very wise quote from William Paley, and nicely contradicts a lot of commonly agreed upon (pseudo)-wisdom of more recent/modern vintage.

It has been used for 700 years, but that doesn't make it grammatically correct. I recall my English professor who would go nuts at using a plural pronoun for a singular antecedent.

This.

According to which style guide? Because there are a lot of them, and not all of them agree with each other over the use of singular they.

Also this. By which I mean, you're absolutely right. Based on how I was taught English, using "they" to refer to a singular antecedent is majorly wrongbadwrong. Others may have been taught English differently.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Check your formatting, ParanoydStyle- some of the tail end of your post is invisible.

 

[ParanoydStyle]

Yeah, I think I unborked it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend,

The antecedent of the bolded their is singular "man".

This is BY FAR the strongest citation I've seen for a "singular they" that goes back centuries as opposed to one that is a relatively recent fad. "Man" is an incredibly clear cut singular antecedent paired with a very explicit use of "their". I have no refutation for this particular citation, I think it's pretty solid.

It doesn't change the fact that I was taught from preschool through kindergarten through primary school through elementary school through middle school through high school through and through the style guides I've referred to as an author that "they" is a plural pronoun. It's always going to feel incredibly, shriekingly, gratingly wrong to me to use it or see it used as a singular pronoun, like nails on a chalkboard. I'm still going to make every effort to refer to individuals by their preferred pronouns.