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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 6212256" data-attributes="member: 3887">Yes, and a change toward gender-inclusive language -- or, at the very least, a move away from the reflexive use of the masculine pronoun as the default-- reflects how we're evolving as an English-speaking culture.In the same way we're moving away from calling things gay when we mean 'bad' or 'silly', or retarded when we mean 'stupid'. As a guy who grew up in New Jersey in the 1970s/1980s, those usages where absolutely part of my everyday speech. They're not anymore, and I'm the better for it. It's not like a had some cherished and inherent right taken away. Well, you could argue the right to sound like a jackhole *is* a cherished right in New Jersey, but let's not go there.No, but we do make things more polite and inclusive. Not a bad starting point. Not defaulting to 'he' hardly constitutes forcing anyone to do anything.You aren't necessarily a bad person for using 'gay' or 'retard' casually, either. But that doesn't mean you should do it, or refrain from suggesting people refrain from doing so. Especially in the text of a published rule book. What's so wrong with just mixing up the pronouns? Quite a bit. Seeing as Orwell's novel described a all-encompassing, soul-crushing police state with a whole branch devoted to changing language in order to prevent any expression of dissent against it. That's pretty far from "Sometimes use she when referring to the warrior". Or you just use 'she' occasionally when referring to a warrior. Sure. Great film!So encouraging people to use --slightly-- different phrasing is similar to dosing entire, unsuspecting, planetary populations with experimental drugs? That's a use of 'precisely similar' I'm unfamiliar with...Because you like equating radically dissimilar things?The way I see, this is no different from the way various kinds of racist language fell out of favor in polite & public conversation. No, we're not all magically not-racist now, but at least on some fronts we're moving toward a place of greater respect. (I have a kind of strong reaction to this, too -- hence all the multiquoting)</blockquote>

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