It is way, way worse. He is offended by “some snowflake being offended” 
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I actually think it would be great to have a moment during the day for every student to fulfill their religious obligations.
I’m a practicing Buddhist, and I’d have loved some time to meditate at the start of each day. I think I heard that Muslims and Jewish people also have some form of religious rite to perform daily.
And I guess atheists can just have some time to sit around and socialize before classes?
Nothing wrong with being accommodating of everyone’s faiths, including christians of course!
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I maybe left-handed, but I’m not a leftist.
Keep your pronouns to yourself.
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No it’s not 
They said they will announce more information including a launch date, later this year.
For now they give us Book of Mercenaries
Ok, when the individual is not know, I indeed see the use of they as the context gives explanation that it’s a single individual.
But when the individual is know, like this text, how is this the right grammar? As I said, I never used or saw plural being used to refer to a single know individual.
It’s specially confusing with languages like in Latin America like Spanish and Portuguese. The words are gendered, not only the gender of the subject of the sentence itself.
So, in your example, “supervisor” word gender is male (not the gender of the subject) just like the word “company” is female.
Your example in spanish is:
Persona A: “¿Ha visto a nuestro nuevo supervisor?”
Persona B: “No, aún no lo he conocido”.
Without knowing if the individual is male or female, the male word take the role of gender-neutral term in Spanish and Portuguese.
I opened the portuguese version of the “Meet the Mercenaries” and see how they did the description:
“Varden Aurafirme, mago/a elfo/a sangrento/a”
In the main text, there is no pronous used to refer to him (you can do that in portuguese and spanish) and in his description, they left undefined his gender, putting the two forms for the word “blood mage elf” ( ‘mago sangrento elfo’ for male and ‘maga sangrenta elfa’ for female).
There is zero confusion in the text. You know exactly what the text is refering about.
So why the English text have to be so confusing for people that don’t have the language as primary language? We have a literal english with english as native language being confused. Don’t you think there is an accessibility problem here?
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What…? Varden is a fictional character, he does not exist. I’m talking to the person who wrote the text to think about accessibility, because english is not the only language in the word and not everyone have it as primary language.
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Those things are not comparable. Taxes/work/laws are citizen responsibilities (though work isn’t with Universal Basic Income) and not doing them does in varying ways harm others. Rejecting gender pronouns is harmless or far less harmful and is closer to freedom of expression. Also if you’re kind of committing the slippery slope fallacy here.
Breaking old traditions isn’t necessarily bad, even if they’re ancient ones. I’m glad we have all kinds of laws that force us to break old traditions. Also, the tradition of gender has changed A LOT throughout history and in different parts of the world. For example some dress styles that were masculine a hundred years ago are feminine now. So since gender is so flexible and malleable it isn’t a very solid tradition to hold onto.
Slippery slope logical fallacy again. More importantly, this adds an exception/excuse to people for a very good reason. Their sense of identity is very important. My ex was given a humanitarian protection visa in Australia because our government decided he couldn’t express his identity freely and safely. In my country at least it is a good reason to allow something exceptional.
I do think you shouldn’t have to worry too much about the pronouns you use. If you want to call people he/she by how they seem, that’s fine with me. Even if some people reject gender, I don’t think everyone should have to dance around them learning their pronouns and apologising. You do your thing, they do theirs.
You’re right - people are upset, and so it would be unfair to dismiss their concerns. However, that doesn’t mean their beliefs that it is causing harm are necessarily true. There were a lot of discussions about the harm done to society by letting black people into it. Plenty of talk about the danger of letting gay people have rights and acknowledgement. But black people taking part in society and people being their gay selves are not causing harm.
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‘They’ is the english word for a non-binary person, hence Blizzard using it. It’s an important definition of a very common word, so people should learn it, whether english is their primary language or not. (I’m not saying you have to agree with the definition though, rather that you should just know what it means.)
You will find this definition in up-to-date online english dictionaries. Merriam-Webster is an American dictionary with a very clear definition of they as a non-binary pronoun.
And you’re right that it’s confusing. Even for primary english speakers. And so is a lot of english unfortunately. People did try using and popularising other non-binary pronouns but none of them stuck as well as ‘they’ for some reason.
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I agree, but with one big exception: you included the word “important”. There is nothing important about calling a non binary person they. It is polite to do so if they wish it, but certainly not important.
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According to what…? Excuse me, why it’s ‘important’ and ‘people SHOULD learn’ ??
‘They’ is a subject pronoun that is always plural when the subject is know. This is taught on school as basic grammar and structure of the language even in countries that does not have english as the primary language. (like mine)
This looks like you are bending the rules of the english language that is exclusive to the US…?
But this is not ‘definition’, this is supposed to be basic grammar structure. I can’t arbitrary change plural to singular and female words to male words as my wish as a writer, I have to respect the language structure. And I studied A LOT to wright my native language in the right way.
And instead of comming up with arbitrary words or changing grammar structure, why not simple use the solution that the Latin-derived languages use?
When you want to generalize the person or sentence in Portuguese, you write he/she as ‘Ele(a)’. Just like how in english you can use any variation of this, like (s)he, he/she, etc…
I don’t understand how using a solution that have very low accessibility is good to everyone.
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I can’t help feeling somebody in the Blizz team is using the game as a vehicle to push their own agenda out there. I’m not sure they have gone about it the best way. They have dropped in a character with a very odd-reading backstory - and no explanation as to why. I suspect the majority of the population have never heard of non-binary, and as people have said - the language used is very confusing.
People come to play Wow/Hearthstone to chill out - not necessarily to be ‘educated’ on political correctness. On the other hand - for people who identify as non-binary - there is very little out there in terms of positive role models that they can identify with. I do feel it is maybe opening the game developers up to criticism - why choose that minority group over another? I do not see any in-game representation for other minority groups… Where is the character with a physical or learning disability? Where is the gay/lesbian character? Do these minority groups also not deserve any kind of representation and right to a positive role model too?
If you are going to try and ‘educate’ your audience - it may have been better to produce an educational article about gender, and what non-binary means - and then have introduced Varden Dawngrasp. That would have made a lot more sense. Of course Blizzard never do anything directly - and no doubt they figured the way the character was written it would spark questions - and thus incite a debate exactly like the one we are having now, as a means to raise awareness. Again - I am not sure that feels like the best way to have gone about it. On the one hand they want to be inclusive - but without actually being upfront and risking being ‘unpopular’ and receiving the negative feedback that inevitably comes with anything new and controversial. You can’t have it both ways Blizzard. Have the courage of your convictions and stand up for this group of individuals and educate your audience fully (and take any backlash and loss of popularity and dent in your profits) rather than release some half-hearted disguised character that really only non-binary people (or those with exposure to that concept) would understand.
You can’t expect people not to ask questions, or to inherently know the issues non-binary people go through - and get defensive when people come across as being disrespectful. People need educating properly - I’m just not sure a gaming franchise is the best way to go about it. Have they not started teaching about gender variations in schools yet?
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“They” is commonly known as a plural pronoun used to refer to a group of people. Non-binary people are not common. Therefore, if a person uses the word “they” most people assume “they” refers to multiple people. If you want it to refer to a single person, you are attempting to force the desires of a small minority on all English-speaking people whether they like it or not. I’m against it myself. If you want a third singular pronoun that refers to a person, make up a new word.
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We’ve tried making up new words. No one uses them.
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The new words that they did make up often became objects of mockery for conservative comedians to complain about, like Neopronouns are these days.
Its kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of situation.
Its also made harder because there’s no like, official board of nonbinary people who can take a vote and make a ruling on things like pronouns. All they can do is follow the conventions their community naturally come to over time by habitual use. Luckily thats also how all languages work!
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Serious question: if “they” is a singular pronoun referring to a nongender person, how does one refer to multiple nongender people with a pronoun?
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Serious answer: english uses “you” for a single person as well as a plural, and hardly anyone objects. It might be the same with “they”.
Though personally, I’d like to see the return of “thou” and “thy”.
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Exactly how I did just now, actually! I referred to the nonbinary community as “they” and “them!
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Still “they”. It’s similar to the way one addresses someone formally in French, where it doesn’t matter if there are one or more people, because it’s the same word.
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Haha I’d love it if that happened! Maybe one day itll catch on again!
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Instead of arbitrary trying to come with a new thing, why not use the language structure or even another language structure to make the thing not confusing?
I know English does not have a neutral pronoun like a lot of language does, but destroying currently rules that the people in general knows and takes a lot of effort to teach is not the best way.
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