Re: [s-d] Spivak Pronouns (was Amended Proposal "Rule Tag")

[Daniel Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 17, 2006, at 7:29 AM, shadowfirebird@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

>>> There is no spivak pronoun "ey", though this is a common mistake.  
>>> The
>>> word you want is "e", which replaces "he" or "she".
>
> Yes there is, as Personman pointed out.  In fact "Ey" is the newer  
> form.
>
> I have a mild preference for Ey because it makes the whole thing a
> no-brainer; just take the "they" form and remove the "th".
>
> While there isn't a rule I'll reserve the right to use Ey, thanks.
> (Just be thankful I don't prefer Sie/Hir/Hirs/Hirself!)
>
> Should there be a rule?  -Why? What would it add to the game?

Hmmm. I hadn't realized spivak had been revised. I prefer 'e' to 'ey'  
because it bears greater similarity to he/she; every time I see a  
phrase like 'ey is', my first instinct is that it ought to read 'ey  
are', which is traditionally what is done when using "they" as a  
gender-neutral singular pronoun.

The main reason for mandating the use of spivak pronouns is to  
prevent ambiguities (I have played a nomic game where a female player  
tried to argue that some rules didn't apply to her because they used  
masculine pronouns).

I would like to establish an official way of doing this, if only for  
consistency, because I don't want to see rules reading "First e gains  
10 points, and then ey loses 2 Charm."

Perhaps it would be better to simply use the masculine, with a  
disclaimer noting that as in traditional english it is assumed to  
refer to both genders.

Heh... or we could write an extension to the wiki where each user can  
select a pronoun set on his/her/eir/their/h*/vis/hir/zer/xyr/zir/ 
thons preferences page, and when viewing the ruleset all pronouns  
would automatically be replaced with the appropriate pronoun set.

-- 
Wonko



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