Author: Karro (---.cybergnostic.com)
Date: 11-10-2005 09:36
One point I noticed while reading through this article is one that, at least the last I had noticed, had not been fully and satisfactorily settled by all writing and language experts, and this relates to the unavailability in the English language to a gender-neutral third person pronoun.
This particular topic interests me somewhat, because of the obvious utility of such a pronoun. While I've seen many different proposals over the years, one truth of language is that a word that isn't used by a the speakers of a language isn't a word in that language. For this reason, one word has come into very wide ciruclation and use as an appropriate gender-neutral third person singular pronoun that is already in use in the language, and that is the gender-neutral third person plural pronoun "they" and "their". Many language purists and experts disagree on its use, but there are others who recognize that if it is used that way in the language (and it widely is, these days), then it is clearly an acceptable usage. Since it fills a noticeable gap in the language, that boosts the argument for its acceptability. So, on that particular issue, I would at least like to point out that the Jury is still out, as it were.
One other note, while I'm still writing a reply. While I was not an English major in college, I do not recall studying either Strunk & Whites or the Chicago Manual of Style. In fact, we studied two completely different manuals of style, and were educated that these two were in fact the mainstream styles used, those being the APA and the MLA style formats. To be quite honest, I've never even heard of either Strunk & White or the Chicago style until I started reading your articles, and I've encountered virtually every other writer's source you've referenced. Can these two really be all that important and industry-standard if I've never heard of them, and never seen them mentioned in other writer's resources? Keep in mind, however, that I come from this not as a published writer or industry-insider, but as someone who has done some casual, independent research into the freelance writing industry (though never specifically for RPGs).
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