Here are two examples close to home that I genuinely do not know who (or what) they are referencing.
“The Devs will change them as needed.”
This is from a post here in forums talking about Venture’s damage, is “them” used to refer to the numbers? or Venture? or the abilities? We’d never know until we ask this individual.
“They can be diverse without being ugly you know.”
This is from a post here in forums talking about Venture’s appearance, is “they” used to refer to Venture’s appearance or the appearance of heroes in general? I’m leaning towards Venture but it’s still unclear.
And many more like these that make me scratch my head here in forums, exactly the reason why I posted here in the first place.
“You’ll find 85% of the time people who mispronoun venture, aren’t deliberate. I will admit I’ve done it myself on more than one occasion accidently in game purely because in that moment the brain puts the voice and gender together. You apologise and correct yourself.”
The person in topic here is Venture, so who else are they apologising too? That is exactly what they were suggesting.
There was no mention of people correcting them in that sentence. They just said they admit they have used the wrong pronouns for Venture in-game and you apologise and correct yourself.
Because that is what the literal sentence implies? You are the one making assumptions to fit your narrative whereas I am taking every single word that was typed and creating meaning from that.
So when Venture is the topic of the sentence, and is the only person mentioned other than the poster themselves, then of course they are talking about apologising to Venture. It’s simple English.
