He said, she said

Which default pronoun do you prefer?

  • He

    Votes: 62 72.9%
  • She

    Votes: 23 27.1%

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English might have changed over the course of time, but I guarantee you that you would fail or get deducted on a college paper if you use she as a neutral pronoun. It is just bad grammar.

That statement is ignorant.

Even Strunk and White accept she as a gender neutral pronoun, and the use of alternating pronouns has been standard issue in textbooks for ages.
 

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Will more females really play D&D if there "she" is used as the generic pronoun? Does using "he" as a generic pronoun actually stop women from playing D&D? Has a potential female gamer ever picked up a copy of the the 1st or 2nd edition PHB and decided in disgust to have nothing to do with the game because its use of pronouns was "sexist"? It seems like the idea of recruiting more female players with the use of feminine pronouns is largely anecdotal.
 

Kae'Yoss said:
Es? It? "It puts the lotion in the basket"?

In German, we at least have an indefinite pronoun: man. It can be translated into you/one or something like that.

So "Man sagt, er habe magische Kräfte" means "They say it has magic powers.", "Kann man so sagen" means "You can say that!" And so on. It's quite useful at times.
Can you imagine what the reaction would be if they started saying things like "When man gains a new level, man chooses a new bonus feat." That would be totally awesome, just because it sounds like pidgin-Tarzan-caveman English.

I don't care what they do, as long as they don't use the word "they" as a singular pronoun.
 


variant said:
English might have changed over the course of time, but I guarantee you that you would fail or get deducted on a college paper if you use she as a neutral pronoun. It is just bad grammar.
I sat through one lecture of a course on world religions a while back, and part of the lecture was the professor instructing us on how to use gender-neutral language to write papers. It took him twenty minutes, and he was very clear about how important it was to do so. He spoke with the furor of a PC zealot, and as my preferred method of alternating gender between examples was not one of the available options, and he seemed more interested in making sure we were all being "sensitive" (or whatever they call it these days) than teaching us about religions, I dropped the course.

It's not a big issue unless you make it into one. I've got more important things to worry about. Throwing in a "he" here and a "she" there pretty much covers any accusations that your choice of pronoun is politically motivated.

edit: I notice that WotC gets around the issue not only by using the iconics for examples, but also by using the word "you" in the description of abilities. It's a cute dodge; by using the second person where the third person would traditionally be used, they can avoid the need to choose a gendered pronoun at all.
 

I suppose one solution is to print all the books in Esperanto! :p It has a gender neutral pronoun 'ĝi'. Of course, we'd all have to learn a second language to read our new rule books!
 

I'm somewhat happy to not have this PC sillyness here... But in French, we have an advantage : there is a clear difference between "un magicien" and "une magicienne", while in English you have only "a magician". Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Mage, Cleric... Don't have female forms in English (as far as I know). Thus, the need to use strange alternance of pronoun if you feel the need to vary the gender of the example.
 

Dr. Awkward said:
I don't care what they do, as long as they don't use the word "they" as a singular pronoun.
Shakespeare's more awesome than you, and he used it.

I predict that in 20 years, "they" will be the gramatically-correct singular and plural pronoun, and long may it reign.
 


I have to say, I can't tell how many posters are seriously ignorant of proper English or are just trying to be funny. So without targeting anyone - my response:

'He' is proper. 'He/She' is proper. 'It' is not proper for usage when describing a living being, there are no gender neutral pronouns for living beings in the English language, nor should there be, the language just doesn't support them; therefore, for this poll, 'He' is the only correct response.
 

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