Please refrain from saying how you feel about how we should refer to people who wish to be referred to as "they' rather than a pronoun such as "he" or "she", as it was at the wishes of the individual in question and the OP asked to refrain from making this a political discussion.
It's real nice how WOTC is being respectful, even if they're probably only doing it to look woke and get the queer dollar.
As others have pointed out, WotC follows the Chicago Manual of Style. So the change has less to do with 'looking woke' and more to do with the fact that not too long ago the Chicago Manual of Style changed their guidelines. And it is about damn time, if I do say so myself.
I have to admit, as an English born native, with a classical education (I did more periods of Latin than English at school), and as a teacher, I won't accept singular "they" in work produced by my students. A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
I am aware of archaic uses of "they", but they are archaic. "Egregious" used to mean outstanding, not outstandingly bad. If I indicated a person's work was egregious, people would assume that I was using the modern rather than eighteenth century meaning. Language evolves, of course, but in this case it becomes confusing to use sungular they in the context of longer sentences involving both individuals and groups.
I would rather a gender neutral personal pronoun be created; many years ago in the UK the pronoun "ze" was pushed as an alternative to he/she, which makes far more sense, as it has no masculine/feminine connotations.
I don't really mind what Americans do, of course. Many of our words are rather stupidly francisised by addition of "u", hence our colour and Anerican "color", an attempt to make our language more sophisticated in days where emulating the French was de regeur, so we already have divergence before we even consider our use of S over Z in words ending in "ised".
I know you were specifically talking about not accepting singular "they" in school work, but I think it's funny you used it yourself when talking about "a teacher" (singular) and "a schoolchild" of indeterminate gender. You can talk about archaic use all you want, but you're probably well aware that it's been reintroduced into common parlance as evident by your own use, which no longer makes it archaic.
I know I used it! I also used "I", which is also a no-no in report writing, which are written in passive register in science.
"I did this" turns into "this was done" for reporting events that have transpired. No "I" or "we" are used, except for introductory references to previous reports e. g. "We have previously reported", which is fine outside of the methodology, but only used in actual papers rather than experimental reports. Plenty of informal speach patterns are not acceptable in formal reports. If a student is writing informal speach that is different, but then they could also use "lol", slang or similar without correction.
It's real nice how WOTC is being respectful, even if they're probably only doing it to look woke and get the queer dollar.
@TOO "all the people should be treated equally" except for the people who you're going to misgender because you know their life better than they do?
A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
Language appears to have moved on.
Indeed it does. Hell, English used to have a dual pronoun. And Latin used to have a dual number; the only remnant of that era in the time when the Romans started writing is a couple words indicating duality, such as duo and ambo. Many years ago, when I was in middle school, I drew a lot of comics, and when designing an alien language (because I'm that obsessive about continuity) I went to the library because I didn't just want English grammar, so I have some little knowledge about this sort of thing.
When you move away from Indo-European languages, there might be no gender system, or sometimes, like in Algonquian languages, there is an animate/inanimate system of gender. (It's still complicated. Strawberries are animate, but blueberries are inanimate.)
Also, I can't believe any in the anti-they crowd would attack grammar and then misspell "genitive". Actually, yeah, I can.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
It's real nice how WOTC is being respectful, even if they're probably only doing it to look woke and get the queer dollar.
@TOO "all the people should be treated equally" except for the people who you're going to misgender because you know their life better than they do?
A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
Language appears to have moved on.
Indeed it does. Hell, English used to have a dual pronoun. And Latin used to have a dual number; the only remnant of that era in the time when the Romans started writing is a couple words indicating duality, such as duo and ambo. Many years ago, when I was in middle school, I drew a lot of comics, and when designing an alien language (because I'm that obsessive about continuity) I went to the library because I didn't just want English grammar, so I have some little knowledge about this sort of thing.
When you move away from Indo-European languages, there might be no gender system, or sometimes, like in Algonquian languages, there is an animate/inanimate system of gender. (It's still complicated. Strawberries are animate, but blueberries are inanimate.)
Also, I can't believe any in the anti-they crowd would attack grammar and then misspell "genitive". Actually, yeah, I can.
Makes sense to me. Strawberries are better than Blueberries.
unless of course, someone prefers a particular pronoun and doesn't find it degrading at all. In which case it's on you to respect them enough to use it.
that's the bottom line. It doesn't do anyone any harm to be polite and respect people enough to do this.
its not just being polite, its downright you are forced by law to do it, and NOT doing it, is not just being unpolite, its downright a crime, which means people are forced to do it, and punished if they dont.
Its a reversal of respect.
Its not a show of respect and its not earned at all.
Its a respect you force upon, which is just like the old age of kings where you chop the heads off people that dont bow before the king.
GOOD...... GRIEF......
People have to earn their pronouns now?!?!
if someone tells you their preferred name? you use their preferred name
if someone tells you their preferred pronoun? you use their preferred pronoun
effortless. positive. polite. respectful.
You really gonna rant at someone about 'being forced' and kings chopping people's heads off if someone gives you a preferred pronoun and you refuse to use it? do you realise how utterly ridiculous that would make you look?
It's real nice how WOTC is being respectful, even if they're probably only doing it to look woke and get the queer dollar.
@TOO "all the people should be treated equally" except for the people who you're going to misgender because you know their life better than they do?
A primary school teacher will likely mark a schoolchild's work as being incorrect if they mix up their pronouns as much as they would if they misused a genative apostrophe or mixed their tenses, and they won't accept "they" for singular.
Language appears to have moved on.
Indeed it does. Hell, English used to have a dual pronoun. And Latin used to have a dual number; the only remnant of that era in the time when the Romans started writing is a couple words indicating duality, such as duo and ambo. Many years ago, when I was in middle school, I drew a lot of comics, and when designing an alien language (because I'm that obsessive about continuity) I went to the library because I didn't just want English grammar, so I have some little knowledge about this sort of thing.
When you move away from Indo-European languages, there might be no gender system, or sometimes, like in Algonquian languages, there is an animate/inanimate system of gender. (It's still complicated. Strawberries are animate, but blueberries are inanimate.)
Also, I can't believe any in the anti-they crowd would attack grammar and then misspell "genitive". Actually, yeah, I can.
Makes sense to me. Strawberries are better than Blueberries.
With fantasy languages, and I was trying to avert that trope, it's because people just, at most, think of a verb as having three persons, two numbers (and no separation of inclusive and exclusive first-person singular), three to six tenses, two or three moods, and two voices. Have those endings, and you're done, right? Nope. Multiple conjugations may exist, as may defective verbs (of which there are several varieties). And most of that will, like English, be analytic. (Though English has some fourteen tenses and four voices, truth be told.)
(An aside, Lakota tenses are kinda weird: There's a simple tense, a continuous tense, and an irrealis tense, the last one including future actions. But then you get evidentiaries.)
Nouns, and even moreso pronouns, will be defined by number, case, and maybe gender. (And pronouns will always have gender, even though they don't necessarily.) But again, two numbers, and between three and eight cases, closer to the lower end. Most of this is just Anglocentric bias.
Time for another story, actually on-topic with this: On Steven Universe, gems reproduce like viruses. The translation convention is that their animate pronoun is rendered as "she", and in other Indo-European languages, dialect favors feminine nouns and pronouns whenever possible, even when the gem type is not a feminine word, such as in Spanish, rubí, zafiro, peridoto, and diamante are all masculine nouns; Steven's fusions, by the way, all use "they", but they might also use "he" or "she", depending. I should say his current fusions; he can also fuse with organics, so a fusion that doesn't answer to "they" at all might be in the future. Anyway, even though it's obvious what's going on, the Crewniverse still also used "thinking Steven is Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond" and the use of "she" pronouns for him as a sort of transgender coding because even knowing all of the above, hearing a dude referred to as "she" outside of hazing is just a tad grating.
#LetsFreeTheSubjunctive
And yeah, saying just a little common courtesy is the same as execution for a protocol violation? I think not.
While I am cisgender, I like "they" as a generic catch-all for when a person's gender is unknown, or when you're playing the pronoun game (as in "I have a significant other now, have you met them?"). It's a nice, gender-neutral pronoun of ancient pedigree, which is important in pronouns, since they're some of the most conservative words in a language. (I always have trouble with xe, sie, shi, and nim because I can only remember the nominative form.)
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
unless of course, someone prefers a particular pronoun and doesn't find it degrading at all. In which case it's on you to respect them enough to use it.
that's the bottom line. It doesn't do anyone any harm to be polite and respect people enough to do this.
its not just being polite, its downright you are forced by law to do it, and NOT doing it, is not just being unpolite, its downright a crime, which means people are forced to do it, and punished if they dont.
Its a reversal of respect.
Its not a show of respect and its not earned at all.
Its a respect you force upon, which is just like the old age of kings where you chop the heads off people that dont bow before the king.
GOOD...... GRIEF......
People have to earn their pronouns now?!?!
if someone tells you their preferred name? you use their preferred name
if someone tells you their preferred pronoun? you use their preferred pronoun
effortless. positive. polite. respectful.
You really gonna rant at someone about 'being forced' and kings chopping people's heads off if someone gives you a preferred pronoun and you refuse to use it? do you realise how utterly ridiculous that would make you look?
While I agree that respect is respect, I also agree with the feeling behind his argument because we've already seen a lot of abuse of this "preferred pronouns" thing and for every Gamestop freakout where the employers realize their staff were being abused, there's a lot of people getting fired for misusing personal information that was undisclosed until it could be used against them.
There's also the fact that, like in everything LGBT, there's subsections and subgroups, including people who suffer gender dysphoria and genuinelly feel that the acceptance of a non-binary prevents them from ever truly transitioning because it's a constant reminder they had to transition, although they just want to be a HE/SHE.
The smallest minority is the individual, and while our intentions may be good, we really shouldn't be promoting such large scale societal changes as modifying language itself, and specially not with the intent of patting ourselves on the back and virtue signaling about how woke we are for it. We already have an individualized label, it's our names. If someone wants special designations they should be allowed to pursue them in their social circles, but not institutionalize their use and specially not punish their misuse or disuse.
While I agree that respect is respect, I also agree with the feeling behind his argument because we've already seen a lot of abuse of this "preferred pronouns" thing and for every Gamestop freakout where the employers realize their staff were being abused, there's a lot of people getting fired for misusing personal information that was undisclosed until it could be used against them.
There's also the fact that, like in everything LGBT, there's subsections and subgroups, including people who suffer gender dysphoria and genuinelly feel that the acceptance of a non-binary prevents them from ever truly transitioning because it's a constant reminder they had to transition, although they just want to be a HE/SHE.
The smallest minority is the individual, and while our intentions may be good, we really shouldn't be promoting such large scale societal changes as modifying language itself, and specially not with the intent of patting ourselves on the back and virtue signaling about how woke we are for it. We already have an individualized label, it's our names. If someone wants special designations they should be allowed to pursue them in their social circles, but not institutionalize their use and specially not punish their misuse or disuse.
Look, I'm as conservative as they come, and I see no issue with this.
The fact of the matter is, whatever Autumn Burchett is/isn't biologically is an entirely different discussion, and one I appreciate the OP for not wanting to get into.
Wizards was writing an article celebrating Burchett's performance at the MC, and elected to use their preferred pronoun. That's their perogative. If you want to refer to them as a "he", or "she", that's your perogative too. Nobody should be able to force you how you refer to someone.
That being said... is the resulting friction you cause over it really worth the message you're trying to send? I mean, who exactly do you even convince by it? I mean, what's Wizard's supposed to do here? "Burchett came out of nowhere and played the hell out of MBT but HE'S REALLY A DUDE JUST SO YOU KNOW." What does that accomplish?
Imagine this- you have an athlete who's a very devout Christian who wears it on their sleeve. Like, Tim Tebow, for instance. Now, you may believe in the tenets of Christianity, you may not. But could you imagine how obnoxious it would be if people writing articles about Tebow, even praising his on-field performance, made sure to insert at every opportunity how the "walking hippy zombie and sky fairy" he worships weren't real?
At the end of the day, Autumn Burchett's a Magic player, and a damn good one at that, and they've done something that every single person on this board can only dream about. There's a place for the transgender, and even pronoun debate, but it ain't here, and it shouldn't be at Autumn's expense.
unless of course, someone prefers a particular pronoun and doesn't find it degrading at all. In which case it's on you to respect them enough to use it.
that's the bottom line. It doesn't do anyone any harm to be polite and respect people enough to do this.
its not just being polite, its downright you are forced by law to do it, and NOT doing it, is not just being unpolite, its downright a crime, which means people are forced to do it, and punished if they dont.
Its a reversal of respect.
Its not a show of respect and its not earned at all.
Its a respect you force upon, which is just like the old age of kings where you chop the heads off people that dont bow before the king.
GOOD...... GRIEF......
People have to earn their pronouns now?!?!
if someone tells you their preferred name? you use their preferred name
if someone tells you their preferred pronoun? you use their preferred pronoun
effortless. positive. polite. respectful.
You really gonna rant at someone about 'being forced' and kings chopping people's heads off if someone gives you a preferred pronoun and you refuse to use it? do you realise how utterly ridiculous that would make you look?
I mean, yes actually. Government forcing you to say or not say certain words is a huge problem. The US Constitution almost didn't pass originally because some men in the constitutional congress demanded tenets that ended up being in the bill of rights. The reason those items exist like freedom of speech and religion is that the colonists had dealt with the consequences of not having those freedoms under British reign. It is irresponsible, in my opinion, to favor it in a certain context. Being nice is no longer being nice when you are required to do it under penalty of law. That's why there is resistance to vague concepts like "hate speech:" it tends to mean "things the person making accusations of hate speech didn't want to hear." Red pills are dropping at high speed now. Thank you president Trump.
And yes, I do think respect is earned. If someone asks me to refer to them by them, I am completely fine with it. My problem comes with seeing someone, saying "she" and a twitter mob forming over something that could have been solved with a single sentence in a calm manner. Being polite is one thing. I'm totally for civility. Respect is on a different tier, though.
Look, I'm as conservative as they come, and I see no issue with this.
The fact of the matter is, whatever Autumn Burchett is/isn't biologically is an entirely different discussion, and one I appreciate the OP for not wanting to get into.
Wizards was writing an article celebrating Burchett's performance at the MC, and elected to use their preferred pronoun. That's their perogative. If you want to refer to them as a "he", or "she", that's your perogative too. Nobody should be able to force you how you refer to someone.
That being said... is the resulting friction you cause over it really worth the message you're trying to send? I mean, who exactly do you even convince by it? I mean, what's Wizard's supposed to do here? "Burchett came out of nowhere and played the hell out of MBT but HE'S REALLY A DUDE JUST SO YOU KNOW." What does that accomplish?
Imagine this- you have an athlete who's a very devout Christian who wears it on their sleeve. Like, Tim Tebow, for instance. Now, you may believe in the tenets of Christianity, you may not. But could you imagine how obnoxious it would be if people writing articles about Tebow, even praising his on-field performance, made sure to insert at every opportunity how the "walking hippy zombie and sky fairy" he worships weren't real?
At the end of the day, Autumn Burchett's a Magic player, and a damn good one at that, and they've done something that every single person on this board can only dream about. There's a place for the transgender, and even pronoun debate, but it ain't here, and it shouldn't be at Autumn's expense.
While there isn’t a place for debate on the validity of treating people with respect or their validity as individuals, it’s definitely a weird place to take a stand on it in general. WotC is very inclusive, and it’s one of the things that makes it a good company in general, at least insofar as companies can be good. Would be really weird to expect them to suddenly change their stance on the matter.
I cannot stand those made up gender “neutral” words. They come off as silly and forced. I’m an old man there’s no way I’m goning to remember any of that.
That said, it’s not difficult to be civil and use “they” as a neutral pronoun if it’s what people prefer.
And to the people that say “respect needs to be earned”, so how do you treat people before they’ve earned your respect? Are just a jerk to people until they’ve met your criteria? How about treating people with respect until they show they don’t deserve respect.
Whatever happened to treating people how you would wish to be treated?
I treat people how I want to be treated, and then I treat them as they treat me. I give respect, disrespect has to be earned.
I cannot stand those made up gender “neutral” words. They come off as silly and forced. I’m an old man there’s no way I’m goning to remember any of that.
That said, it’s not difficult to be civil and use “they” as a neutral pronoun if it’s what people prefer.
And to the people that say “respect needs to be earned”, so how do you treat people before they’ve earned your respect? Are just a jerk to people until they’ve met your criteria? How about treating people with respect until they show they don’t deserve respect.
Whatever happened to treating people how you would wish to be treated?
I treat people how I want to be treated, and then I treat them as they treat me. I give respect, disrespect has to be earned.
Fair question: I think civility is different than respect. Civility means I'm not going to go out of my way to make anyone's life difficult, but if my best interests and yours were to enter conflict, I would not give any ground. How I act towards others, how any person can act towards others in fact, is a pretty broad spectrum. Reducing it to a binary of "well you are either respectful or a jerk" ignores a lot of nuance. If you automatically respect people, you are gonna get taken for a ride repeatedly. Here's an example:
I'm walking into a restaurant. As I open the door, I see out of my peripheral vision that someone is a couple feet behind me. I keep my hand on the door until they place their hand out to take the weight. However, and I barhop frequently enough to see this constantly, if this plays out and the person behind me doesn't take the door, but rather turns away and starts talking to someone "Hey, we should go in here!" I'm just moving on. It isn't my responsibility to keep that door propped open for them. Another case:
If I called Autumn "she" or "her" based purely on visual data, and their response was to ask that I use third person pronouns, s'all good. A simple request gets a simple answer. However, if a twitter mob forms calling for my banning from MtG or being fired from my job? Well that mob doesn't deserve any respect. Part of my irritation with these discussions is that a certain group of people that we can't even call out on this forum per the rules thinks they are superheroes fighting evil. It's why I am just a guy who plays Magic, not a member of some community.
Being nice is a cute pipe dream. People are generally not that nice, and the sooner you learn that and start with doubt, the better off you will be.
I cannot stand those made up gender “neutral” words. They come off as silly and forced. I’m an old man there’s no way I’m goning to remember any of that.
That said, it’s not difficult to be civil and use “they” as a neutral pronoun if it’s what people prefer.
And to the people that say “respect needs to be earned”, so how do you treat people before they’ve earned your respect? Are just a jerk to people until they’ve met your criteria? How about treating people with respect until they show they don’t deserve respect.
Whatever happened to treating people how you would wish to be treated?
I treat people how I want to be treated, and then I treat them as they treat me. I give respect, disrespect has to be earned.
Fair question: I think civility is different than respect. Civility means I'm not going to go out of my way to make anyone's life difficult, but if my best interests and yours were to enter conflict, I would not give any ground. How I act towards others, how any person can act towards others in fact, is a pretty broad spectrum. Reducing it to a binary of "well you are either respectful or a jerk" ignores a lot of nuance. If you automatically respect people, you are gonna get taken for a ride repeatedly. Here's an example:
I'm walking into a restaurant. As I open the door, I see out of my peripheral vision that someone is a couple feet behind me. I keep my hand on the door until they place their hand out to take the weight. However, and I barhop frequently enough to see this constantly, if this plays out and the person behind me doesn't take the door, but rather turns away and starts talking to someone "Hey, we should go in here!" I'm just moving on. It isn't my responsibility to keep that door propped open for them. Another case:
If I called Autumn "she" or "her" based purely on visual data, and their response was to ask that I use third person pronouns, s'all good. A simple request gets a simple answer. However, if a twitter mob forms calling for my banning from MtG or being fired from my job? Well that mob doesn't deserve any respect. Part of my irritation with these discussions is that a certain group of people that we can't even call out on this forum per the rules thinks they are superheroes fighting evil. It's why I am just a guy who plays Magic, not a member of some community.
Being nice is a cute pipe dream. People are generally not that nice, and the sooner you learn that and start with doubt, the better off you will be.
I definitely don’t need a lecture on how people are, as someone who owns a business involving customer service I’ve had to learn to edit my behavior both for the sake of my customers and employees. I don’t trust anyone and surely don’t take any crap either.
All your examples are perfectly fine and I agree. I guess I was using “respectful” and “civil” more synonymously. My statement is aimed primarily at the “I don’t want to change my behavior because reasons” crowd.
I agree people can really suck much of the time, but I’ve also learned that treating people well can illicit better behavior from them. I’m generally considered an ******** by people around me, but that doesn’t mean I have to be less mature.
You’re absolutely correct, no need to put yourself in a position to be taken advantage of. I guess finding that balance between being polite and cautious is the key.
I cannot stand those made up gender “neutral” words. They come off as silly and forced. I’m an old man there’s no way I’m goning to remember any of that.
That said, it’s not difficult to be civil and use “they” as a neutral pronoun if it’s what people prefer.
I know I used it! I also used "I", which is also a no-no in report writing, which are written in passive register in science.
"I did this" turns into "this was done" for reporting events that have transpired. No "I" or "we" are used, except for introductory references to previous reports e. g. "We have previously reported", which is fine outside of the methodology, but only used in actual papers rather than experimental reports. Plenty of informal speach patterns are not acceptable in formal reports. If a student is writing informal speach that is different, but then they could also use "lol", slang or similar without correction.
Indeed it does. Hell, English used to have a dual pronoun. And Latin used to have a dual number; the only remnant of that era in the time when the Romans started writing is a couple words indicating duality, such as duo and ambo. Many years ago, when I was in middle school, I drew a lot of comics, and when designing an alien language (because I'm that obsessive about continuity) I went to the library because I didn't just want English grammar, so I have some little knowledge about this sort of thing.
When you move away from Indo-European languages, there might be no gender system, or sometimes, like in Algonquian languages, there is an animate/inanimate system of gender. (It's still complicated. Strawberries are animate, but blueberries are inanimate.)
Also, I can't believe any in the anti-they crowd would attack grammar and then misspell "genitive". Actually, yeah, I can.
On phasing:
Makes sense to me. Strawberries are better than Blueberries.
But I agree with you, fantasy languages are often more regular and simple than English truly is.
GOOD...... GRIEF......
People have to earn their pronouns now?!?!
if someone tells you their preferred name? you use their preferred name
if someone tells you their preferred pronoun? you use their preferred pronoun
effortless. positive. polite. respectful.
You really gonna rant at someone about 'being forced' and kings chopping people's heads off if someone gives you a preferred pronoun and you refuse to use it? do you realise how utterly ridiculous that would make you look?
With fantasy languages, and I was trying to avert that trope, it's because people just, at most, think of a verb as having three persons, two numbers (and no separation of inclusive and exclusive first-person singular), three to six tenses, two or three moods, and two voices. Have those endings, and you're done, right? Nope. Multiple conjugations may exist, as may defective verbs (of which there are several varieties). And most of that will, like English, be analytic. (Though English has some fourteen tenses and four voices, truth be told.)
(An aside, Lakota tenses are kinda weird: There's a simple tense, a continuous tense, and an irrealis tense, the last one including future actions. But then you get evidentiaries.)
Nouns, and even moreso pronouns, will be defined by number, case, and maybe gender. (And pronouns will always have gender, even though they don't necessarily.) But again, two numbers, and between three and eight cases, closer to the lower end. Most of this is just Anglocentric bias.
#LetsFreeTheSubjunctive
And yeah, saying just a little common courtesy is the same as execution for a protocol violation? I think not.
While I am cisgender, I like "they" as a generic catch-all for when a person's gender is unknown, or when you're playing the pronoun game (as in "I have a significant other now, have you met them?"). It's a nice, gender-neutral pronoun of ancient pedigree, which is important in pronouns, since they're some of the most conservative words in a language. (I always have trouble with xe, sie, shi, and nim because I can only remember the nominative form.)
On phasing:
There's also the fact that, like in everything LGBT, there's subsections and subgroups, including people who suffer gender dysphoria and genuinelly feel that the acceptance of a non-binary prevents them from ever truly transitioning because it's a constant reminder they had to transition, although they just want to be a HE/SHE.
The smallest minority is the individual, and while our intentions may be good, we really shouldn't be promoting such large scale societal changes as modifying language itself, and specially not with the intent of patting ourselves on the back and virtue signaling about how woke we are for it. We already have an individualized label, it's our names. If someone wants special designations they should be allowed to pursue them in their social circles, but not institutionalize their use and specially not punish their misuse or disuse.
Well spoken. Couldnt agree more.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
The fact of the matter is, whatever Autumn Burchett is/isn't biologically is an entirely different discussion, and one I appreciate the OP for not wanting to get into.
Wizards was writing an article celebrating Burchett's performance at the MC, and elected to use their preferred pronoun. That's their perogative. If you want to refer to them as a "he", or "she", that's your perogative too. Nobody should be able to force you how you refer to someone.
That being said... is the resulting friction you cause over it really worth the message you're trying to send? I mean, who exactly do you even convince by it? I mean, what's Wizard's supposed to do here? "Burchett came out of nowhere and played the hell out of MBT but HE'S REALLY A DUDE JUST SO YOU KNOW." What does that accomplish?
Imagine this- you have an athlete who's a very devout Christian who wears it on their sleeve. Like, Tim Tebow, for instance. Now, you may believe in the tenets of Christianity, you may not. But could you imagine how obnoxious it would be if people writing articles about Tebow, even praising his on-field performance, made sure to insert at every opportunity how the "walking hippy zombie and sky fairy" he worships weren't real?
At the end of the day, Autumn Burchett's a Magic player, and a damn good one at that, and they've done something that every single person on this board can only dream about. There's a place for the transgender, and even pronoun debate, but it ain't here, and it shouldn't be at Autumn's expense.
I mean, yes actually. Government forcing you to say or not say certain words is a huge problem. The US Constitution almost didn't pass originally because some men in the constitutional congress demanded tenets that ended up being in the bill of rights. The reason those items exist like freedom of speech and religion is that the colonists had dealt with the consequences of not having those freedoms under British reign. It is irresponsible, in my opinion, to favor it in a certain context. Being nice is no longer being nice when you are required to do it under penalty of law. That's why there is resistance to vague concepts like "hate speech:" it tends to mean "things the person making accusations of hate speech didn't want to hear." Red pills are dropping at high speed now. Thank you president Trump.
And yes, I do think respect is earned. If someone asks me to refer to them by them, I am completely fine with it. My problem comes with seeing someone, saying "she" and a twitter mob forming over something that could have been solved with a single sentence in a calm manner. Being polite is one thing. I'm totally for civility. Respect is on a different tier, though.
While there isn’t a place for debate on the validity of treating people with respect or their validity as individuals, it’s definitely a weird place to take a stand on it in general. WotC is very inclusive, and it’s one of the things that makes it a good company in general, at least insofar as companies can be good. Would be really weird to expect them to suddenly change their stance on the matter.
That said, it’s not difficult to be civil and use “they” as a neutral pronoun if it’s what people prefer.
And to the people that say “respect needs to be earned”, so how do you treat people before they’ve earned your respect? Are just a jerk to people until they’ve met your criteria? How about treating people with respect until they show they don’t deserve respect.
Whatever happened to treating people how you would wish to be treated?
I treat people how I want to be treated, and then I treat them as they treat me. I give respect, disrespect has to be earned.
Fair question: I think civility is different than respect. Civility means I'm not going to go out of my way to make anyone's life difficult, but if my best interests and yours were to enter conflict, I would not give any ground. How I act towards others, how any person can act towards others in fact, is a pretty broad spectrum. Reducing it to a binary of "well you are either respectful or a jerk" ignores a lot of nuance. If you automatically respect people, you are gonna get taken for a ride repeatedly. Here's an example:
I'm walking into a restaurant. As I open the door, I see out of my peripheral vision that someone is a couple feet behind me. I keep my hand on the door until they place their hand out to take the weight. However, and I barhop frequently enough to see this constantly, if this plays out and the person behind me doesn't take the door, but rather turns away and starts talking to someone "Hey, we should go in here!" I'm just moving on. It isn't my responsibility to keep that door propped open for them. Another case:
If I called Autumn "she" or "her" based purely on visual data, and their response was to ask that I use third person pronouns, s'all good. A simple request gets a simple answer. However, if a twitter mob forms calling for my banning from MtG or being fired from my job? Well that mob doesn't deserve any respect. Part of my irritation with these discussions is that a certain group of people that we can't even call out on this forum per the rules thinks they are superheroes fighting evil. It's why I am just a guy who plays Magic, not a member of some community.
Being nice is a cute pipe dream. People are generally not that nice, and the sooner you learn that and start with doubt, the better off you will be.
I definitely don’t need a lecture on how people are, as someone who owns a business involving customer service I’ve had to learn to edit my behavior both for the sake of my customers and employees. I don’t trust anyone and surely don’t take any crap either.
All your examples are perfectly fine and I agree. I guess I was using “respectful” and “civil” more synonymously. My statement is aimed primarily at the “I don’t want to change my behavior because reasons” crowd.
I agree people can really suck much of the time, but I’ve also learned that treating people well can illicit better behavior from them. I’m generally considered an ******** by people around me, but that doesn’t mean I have to be less mature.
You’re absolutely correct, no need to put yourself in a position to be taken advantage of. I guess finding that balance between being polite and cautious is the key.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)