I'm idling outside of my guildhall while paying attention to something else IRL. All of a sudden, I hear a loud "riiing! riiiing!" And so I run back to the keyboard...
It's off topic Byron. Any problems? You might notice that the rules are not kept too strictly on this issue, and like 90% of the blocked threads were blocked because they were one long bitching or semi-flaming, or getting there. And yes, when Nicuramar is participating, it's Nicuramar's judgement when it's off-topic. I think you can all live with this terrible power abuse from my side ;-).
My 2 cents, in Spanish we have 'el' (he), 'ella' (she) and 'ello', 'ello' is used for innanimate (like english 'it') but it's also used for 'undeterminate sex' (hermaphrodite? asexual? *shrug*), I've been always surprised by the lack of 'ello' in english (seems to me that 'it' is too much 'determinate'...)
Isn't it talking about something in the log?
Because Nicuramar himself is actively participating in the off-topic conversation?
Why isn't this off-topic?
Alright Beyaz, in some limited situations with indefinites and preceded by 'anyone' etc., like 'anyone in their senses', but certainly not 'Figure looks at their hands'. That use can not be admissible.
Merriam-Webster says:
//'English lacks a common-gender third person singular pronoun that can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns (as everyone, anyone, someone). Writers and speakers have supplied this lack by using the plural pronouns'//
..which agreed with that. As a quick note I might add that danish does the same thing sometimes :-).
Hir is another one of these words introduced by Americans, trying to bastardise our beautiful language *grumbles*
Date: 16. Nov, 2003, 14:38:21 By: Nicuramar
No, 'they' is plural so... 'their hands' can only work if there are multiple figures
Incorrect Nicu...Their can be used as the singular or plural.
So to sum up: Their is plural, not a substitute for 'his or her'. Both his and her are singular. Their is the //only// plural possesive pronoun, and it is gender neutral. This is typical for many languages. Using their in singular is incorrect. And as Rudmar points out, this includes those cases where the word is singular even though it describes something that is not.
Oh and... We do in danish as I mentioned have a gender neutral possesive reflexive singular (sin or sit), but alas, not the same for just regular subjective or objective pronouns... argh, this is getting too technical! Anyways... we all have areas of interest ;).
...and hir still sounds weird :-p.
Damn nice.
nice one caber lol :)
Sorry I suppose we got carried away but often its just bickering over stuff in those threads and that's not so interesting. Heh it is often fun to read though.
Though, now that I think of it, I should have titled this log 'Anonymous figured doing hir thing'
WHY DID YOU TURN MY LOG INTO A GRAMMATICAL DEBATE FORUM?!
And yeah. 'Their' is incorrect when referring to someone of unknown gender. The only correct way I've ever known to do it is to use 'his or her,' or to just look like an ass and assume one gender or the other. Bummer, huh?
Maybe hir is a word comming from persons that think 'use he unless the antecedent is or must be feminine' is pretty much the same thing as saying 'grab yourself a beer, watch a hockey game and then go beat your wife'. A new gender equal alternative :)
Btw this is from 'Elements of style'
'They - A common inaccuracy is the use of the plural pronoun when the antecedent is a distributive expression such as each, each one, everybody, every one, many a man, which, though implying more than one person, requires the pronoun to be in the singular.
Similar to this, but with even less justification, is the use of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody, any one, somebody, some one, the intention being either to avoid the awkward 'he or she,' or to avoid committing oneself to either. Some bashful speakers even say, 'A friend of mine told me that they, etc.'
Use he with all the above words, unless the antecedent is or must be
feminine.'
How about 'Its'
The mud doesn't want 'their' when its singular form. I am not a grammar expert so I cannot say why exactly, but that's how it is. If anyone wanted to know.
i can be used that way, but it is incorrect. it is widely used in that way, but i shouldn't be. 'their' is a plural third-person possesive pronoun. 'his' and 'her' are singular third-person possesive pronouns. when 'their' is used as a ungendered singular pronoun, it is wrong. 'hir' is just weird, though.
'their' is not only plural. It is used as a gender neutral pronoun in the case where the author is trying to not be gender-biased, but refrains from using the long hand 'his or her', or the getting-more-common 'her'.
Nic may be correct in an obscure technical aspect, but in both of the English-speaking countries that I've lived in, 'their' can be used as singular.
-otoron
No, "they" is plural so... "their hands" can only work if there are multiple figures. Hir might be correct enough and all, but it still sounds ridiculous :-p. What we need is a reflexive genitive pronoun similar to danish 'sin', which doesn't contain gender, but refers to the subject of the sentence ;-).
Razor, I know, I didn't write that paragraph, it was copied verbatim from the url I posted.
Hey, I didn't choose the language, but it's only fairly recently that we've switched to using that, if you spot instances where you can tell the sex of someone you shouldn'#t be able to see, feel free to typo/bug report it
um you do know Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese right?
I'm not a native speaker, but I always thought 'they' was used if the gender is not specified. Anonymous figure stares at their hands.
Wow Spansh. I learned something new!
Now if only they'd make that standard, since that's only one out of 30 instances where you can't tell the gender while faded.
http://www.vexen.co.uk/words.html
Hir
Hir is a short word for 'His/Her' or 'Him/Her'. Instead of writing the awkward sentence 'Where is his/her details?' we write 'Where is hir details?'. Many other languages (such as Cantonese, Chinese and French) have a word that means 'him/her' or 'she/he'. There is no easy way to write (s)he, possibly because the construct (s)he is a good enough method.
It may not be recognised by the OED, but it is 'commonly' used. (well, ok not commonly).
The reason we use it and other things like it, is because if someone is faded or whatnot and they draw their sword etc, you should not be able to tell if they are male or female.
its sounds better I think. its an ownage word. I never heard of hir.
It's true that hir is used like that, but I don't think it's a real word. Good the same, it looks horrible in sentences like that :-p.
Anonymous figure stares at hir hands. <--- Typo...fixit gods!
hir is not a typo.
Hir is the neutral version of his/her, and since it's an anonymous figure you can't tell if it is a him or a her.
The same 'should' happen when you are blind for whatever reason.
yeah...its funny you let ppl have 'your' guild weapon to backstab you and earn fine gold from them...not a bad idea.
Your entrepreneur skills have increased due to use.
How come he had your guild weapon ?:P:)
Haha, that is pretty funny.
Yeah, so apparently Anselmo attacked me or something. And then Grimscar paid the fine for it anyway. So yeah, you guys sure fooled me into getting free gold off of you. Smooth. :P
What makes this log kinda funny is that...
I didn't attack Caber! But I made him think i did :)
Meh...