xD I feel you, though, in the Swedish translation Dirk Dreamer is called Dick, and I have a sim who wishes to give Dick a massage. My reaction upon seeing it: "Aww, you like Dick? ^^ ... uh..."

Dick is also a nickname for Richard, I think... Hahahahaha!

She (he?) told me that she'd deleted it by mistake while deleting her other posts. Maybe she only meant to delete her first post in it, but it took the whole thread with it. Perhaps it's too easy for an original poster to delete a thread. When lots of people have posted to a thread, it can seem like our common property, so it can be a bit harsh on the other posters in the thread that the OP can delete it by mistake. As I recall, that thread had over 700 posts in the few months it was running.

I have no idea why she wanted to delete all (or most of) her posts, and I don't like to pry. No doubt she has personal reasons. I cannot recall any hostility to her here and I hope none of us did or said anything to upset her. Maybe it was her Sims that upset her. They can take over your life you know, and I can sort of understand that someone might want them completely out of their life.

I wish someone would invent a 3rd person common gender singular pronoun in English -- so that I wouldn't have to decide whether to write "he" or "she" when I just don't know.

Thank you gummilutt for your thoughts about pooklet hair, and BoilingOil for that link to your phonehack fix. I'll try to get back to both of you when I have a little more time.

They can indeed. Some of my sims mean more to me than real life people.

Actually, such a common 3rd person pronoun exists, and it is "they". Yeah, it is confusing because of the common plural usage. In MOO circles, 'e' ('im', 'em', 'ey', 'eir') is suggested as a common gender-neutral pronoun.

Back in the 80's (around the time when I was a spelling bee champion in the Fifth Grade and I was well on my way to becoming a sesquipedalian), I learned that some linguist had come up with "thon" as a generic pronoun for use when the subject's gender or quantity was unknown, so it was intended to substitute for "he," "she" and "it" as well as "they." Despite its coverage of the Third Person Plural, "thon" was supposedly used in conjunction with singular verbs. Majority rules, I suppose.

Of course, as evinced by its obscurity, "thon" never quite caught on. I imagine that it would have been a rather awkward pronoun to use; we human beings aren't very fond of vagueness and uncertainty, after all.

I have heard of "zir/ze" being used a good amount before. I personally tend to go with "they" more often than not, though. I try to be respectful of other people's personal pronouns, but, really, the Tumblr-ite list can start to be a bit ridiculous at times, I think that the last time someone tried to make a list of all of them there were like 30+ on there. Some of them even just seem like someone just made them up and wanted people to use them because it "sounds cute." Were I trans or andro I would be more offended to be called "bun" than "they," because to me "bun" sounds more like someone were being condescending to me, like "Aw, of course, you're a cute little bun!", but then that's just me. If someone really wanted to be addressed like that, I would once they kindly and respectfully let me know that they would prefer that over "they."

I'm a little late, but Pescado's Autoyak + Phone Hack + Phone Hack talk module + BO's Phone Make-over = the best use I've ever gotten out of the phone system. No nagging friends messages because they'll call my sim instead of whining, if friends are available to be called I get an option to Call Friends (so no time wasted calling someone who won't be available), if I do manually call someone who isn't home I get a time when they'll be available, plus my sim doesn't hang up in the middle of a conversation just because their Social is full. There is also an option to Call Enemies, if they're available, but I don't ever use it.

Edit: Actually, I'd like to say thank you, BO, for your mods. Their very useful. I'm especially fond of your Slow Aging Controller :D

I'm almost embarrassed by the compliments, @Devon Aster. Thank you so much. I use the same combo of phone enhancing mods (ofcourse), and some of my sims are gonna live forever thanks to the Slow Aging Controller. I'm glad they serve you as well as they do me

We have a new gender neutral pronoun in Swedish but I refuse to use it. I prefer "him/her". As for they/them as gender neutral pronouns, isn't that very informal?

Informal? Maybe, but what would we otherwise call a third person of which we know neither gender nor name, let alone anything else? Highness? If they were male, they might be offended being referred to as she/her, and vice versa. All we know, is that there is someone. We use 'one' for first person already, and 'you' for second person. So we call that third, very unspecified person 'they' and 'them'.

I would gladly consider any better alternative, but as long as none are given... :D

You're lucky if there is some sort of consensus on a gender-neutral pronoun in your county. I really wish we had one in the States. I never like using they/them as a singular pronoun. Call me old-fashioned (I had it drummed into my head that they/them as a singular was a no-no when I was growing up), call me stubborn (yup), but for me, they/them is plural, and in some cases, can be really confusing in day-to-day use if used as a singular. I tend to take the easy way out and either use you/your, one (some insist that sounds stuffy ... I respectfully disagree), other ways to refer to the person (such as using the person's name) and plurals whenever possible. Sometimes, I'll use him/her, but I keep it to a minimum. I have no great problem with the universal he, but prefer not to use it.

I'm 100% for using a gender-neutral pronoun. Really. I grew up before Ms. was popular, and during those early awkward days when people were getting used to it. I know creating a new word or reviving an old one can be done. But please, please, we need to agree on ONE pronoun! Not whichever one tickles your fancy. No bun, please, though. It sounds cutesy to me, probably because I've heard people use "bun-bun" or "bunny" as a term of endearment. And there are some people out there who are decidedly not that dear to me.

It's interesting to me when even grammar forums with people whose grammar is far better than mine can be quite animated over this. Some really advocate they/them; some he/she. But many of these people, whom I imagine sipping tea while reading 19-century literature, can get really agitated over this. (No offense to tea-drinkers ... I prefer tea, myself ... or devotees of 19th-century literature. And by the way, I know Dickens would use they/them.)

My kids grew up learning that the gender-neutral singular form is"it". But admittedly, most people would not want to be referred to as an "it". 😀

I've kinda grown to like "they" as a gender neutral pronoun, but I think it's pretty neat to have an "official" one (I'm a swede too), especially when it starts being frequently used in mainstream media and such. It's too bad it's still controversial amongst some people, it's very useful I think.

Random thought: I had my little sister over yesterday, and appearently she really wanted to try The Sims 2. If my computer had been working all'd been well and dandy (grumpy face), instead I tried turning it on on my old computer, and unfortunately she didn't even get to finish her family in CAS before it stopped responding. In any case, it was quite interesting seeing the game from the perspective of an eight-year-old, and to see her making sims of her own. I can't see why she'd want to give her second-to-darkest-skinned sim some sort of cc highlight that made her nose all white, but hey, I won't judge ^^ I didn't quite know how to explain turn-ons and turn-offs to her, though, and in the end I don't think she really understood that function at all. x)

Aw, you're welcome, BO =)




I'm curious, why do you refuse to use it?

("Hen") Because, I'm conservative. It's not established, but they just added it to the dictionary, when people write it, it looks like a political statement. It's a made-up word, not a real word IMO.

A made-up word, compared to real words, that are harvested from the ground.

All words are made up. Words don't exist on their own, of their own accord. They aren't concrete things like rocks and trees and stars that don't need a definition to be what they are. Regardless of whether someone calls a rock a rock, or something else, or nothing at all, it still resides within the world. Words, on the other hand, require meaning, which is given to them by people. A word without meaning is a collection of sounds. Mere gibberish. A word can change its meaning, sometimes even to the opposite one, and sometimes they lose their meaning entirely and are forgotten so they cease to exist. A rock can be forgotten, but it doesn't cease to exist because of it. If people decided all new words were made up, and thus without value, language wouldn't just stagnate, it would never even begin. Language is simply one intelligent mind going "I want to communicate this to someone else and have them understand" and finding the appropriate label to stick on that thing (whether it be an idea, a reference to an object or to an event or to a person, etc). If there is no appropriate label then one must, by default, be 'made up'. It doesn't exist yet, so it has to be created, so that one mind can communicate to the other what it needs or wants to.

When someone writes it, it may be indeed be a political statement or it may not be. It might simply be someone saying "I didn't have a word this before and now I do", and so they use it. Not being established is something all new words go through. I can understand finding a word clunky or aesthetically unpleasant, but I can also understand whatever authority in a country wanting to curtail too many variants and alternatives since I imagine it could have implications in writing future laws.

I can't really comment on the "I'm conservative" thing, as I find it too broad an answer to be particularly helpful to my understanding. It's kind of like if someone says "I don't do this because I'm Christian". There are may flavors of Christianity, some of which have ideals and doctrines that contradict other groups that also self-identify as Christian. It doesn't tell me what specifically about being Christian informs their decision to behave as they do. Broad guesses can be made using what I know, but that rests on making assumptions which may or may not be true. I'm at even more of a disadvantage with this, as I haven't studied what political conservatism in general means in that part of the world. I only know what it means where I live, and even then it's probably not a good idea to jump to conclusions about specific reasons based on a broader political label.

Edit: I just realized I had forgotten to thank you for taking time to answer my question

And I apologize to everyone else for the derailing. I was really curious as to the reason

With conservative I don't mean in the political sense but regarding to language, I'm a conservative, I feel that it's important to use formal address with titles for example. Not that it's important to use titles, but if someone uses titles they should also use formal address. That was just an example, why I said I'm conservative. Anyways, I also apologize for derailing thread or how you say in English.

Ah, then it's a good thing I didn't make go further with any assumptions, since my base assumption you meant political conservative was quite wrong!

They/them has been continuously used as the grammatically correct gender-neutral third person singular in English since at least the 1400s. There was a brief period (late 1700s to probably the 1970s) in which some grammarians inexplicably tried to make English (a kinda-Germanic bastardized hodgepodge of a language) behave like Latin, which had been dead for at least 1,000 years at that point. These grammarians themselves didn't really understand why they were trying to force English to be like Latin, and most people completely ignored the new "rules" unless they were writing something formal. Most of these "rules" have now died, leaving the rules that never stopped being followed back in place as correct, although "they" is hanging on the longest.

That would be the reason that new constructions like "xi" or "che" or anything else haven't caught on: there are no true synonyms in any language. If two words mean exactly the same thing, one of them dies. A new word might be the survivor if it offers some advantage, but a strange new coinage that has to be explained offers no advantage whatever to a common, clear, correct, and universally understood existing term.

I'm sure many people were taught in school that "they" is plural and "he" is correct. I'm also sure those same people were taught to never end a sentence with a preposition or split an infinitive. How many of those people actually twist their words around to follow those rules? I would bet very few to none, since it sounds seriously weird when you do...

I always used they.

And to the people who are apologising for derailing the random thoughts thread. I don't think it is actually possible to derail such a thread. Maybe by actually sticking to a topic. XD

Maybe, as a dutchman, my opinion on the gender-neutral pronoun front means nothing. But I'm saying it anyway: in English, at least there is this 'tradition' of using 'they' and 'them' for this purpose. And actually, I find it very clear in most cases. Even for a non-native English speaker, it's usually extremely simple to deduct from a context whether it's the plural they meant to signify a group, or the singular they meant to address an person of uncertain gender.

In Dutch (and as far as I'm aware in most other western languages) there isn't anything like that. We really have to say "hij of zij" (he or she), when talking about someone whose gender we do not know. Very inconvenient, if you ask me. So I'm comfortable using they/them for a gender-neutral pronoun.

'It' signifies an object that has no gender, which is nothing like a creature whose gender is unclear. The latter *has* a gender. We just don't know which! So to me, 'it' seems inappropriate.

Hee, sounds like a paradox of some kind =P

I'm not too fussed about using they/them, myself. As has been pointed out, it's already being used in that capacity and I don't find it terribly unwieldy. Though I could see why someone might want a word that specifically signifies 'non-binary gender' or 'gender-neutral for a known person' versus they which also lumps in the somewhat impersonal 'unknown person of unknown gender'.

We only call a person "it"' (or in my language "dit") if he/she is regarded as not worthy of being a human being, and it will be regarded as an insult in my country (in English as well). And, after all, people do normally belong to a gender - and if a he would prefer to be called a she or vice versa, I will gladly oblige, yet personally I have not met anybody who wants that - my gay friends say they are still men/women in every way, they just have a different sexual preference. And we will also say "hy of sy" or "he or she" here. And saying something like "Sam said they would be here shortly" will confuse the hell out of South Africans - we will start preparing meals for a ton of people and start the washing machine to wash more sheets.

One reason why I deleted the thread was because I've seen where this discussion over singular pronouns can get pretty heated, and even on more genteel forums, people resort to name-calling. And that would REALLY stray off the subject of The Sims. No need for that! I still find that in several contexts, I DO find using "they" confusing, and I don't agree with the "but it's been done for centuries" argument. Centuries ago, we English-speakers did quite a few interesting things with the English language that I'm really glad we don't do today! Some of that 17-century stuff can be pretty unreadable now. There can also be some issues re translation, as Justpetro pointed out.

Justpetro illustrates one of my other points. If it is just one person in a short sentence or two (oops .... used "it" ... but we sometimes DO use "it" to refer to a person, and we don't even think twice about it, such as asking "Who is it?" when someone knocks on our door), that's not too bad. "Suzy went sledding today. They really enjoy it". People can figure out that "they" means Suzy. Not my cup of tea, but meh. It would be really, really rude for me to butt in, "But it's he or she!" Rude and pointless. Oh, and silly. Very silly.

But if you toss more people in that paragraph and lengthen it, all those "theys" can be confusing to me if used to refer to singular pronouns as well as plural. Wait ... we have Walter and Jenny in there as well. So is that "they" referring to just Suzy? Suzy and Walter? Sometimes. it's hard enough to follow with "he or she"! Hence, the reason why I would want a consensually-agreed-upon new pronoun; one that would make it very clear you're referring to a single person and not a group. I feel it would better-clarify these kinds of sentences.

For the time being, I follow the advice of Grammar Girl on her site. It makes sense to me. Try to avoid the pronoun entirely unless absolutely necessary. Most sentences can be re-written to avoid it, and yes, if people follow my posts (I can't see anyone avidly following them, but ...) I do revise them constantly if I feel they're not clear. "Every student needs to bring his or her project in on Wednesday" could be easily rewritten to, "All students need to bring in their projects on Wednesday". In the case of Suzy, I would use Suzy's name twice if I knew that the person does not like the "he or she" pronoun. Or write, "The ________ (teen, sledding champion, etc.) really enjoys it." Using "Suzy" twice is a little clunky, but I feel it works well enough. At least we definitely know it's Suzy. Singular Suzy. (Sounds like an interesting name for a performer or rock band.) I try to adapt this in everyday speech as well.

One note .. in my cultural enclave of the world, we NEVER referred to a singular person as "they" while I was growing up and during a good chunk of my adult years. Not in writing. Not in speech. Not informally or formally. For a number of years, it was the universal "he". Then it was "he or she" or "he/she". For many of us, it made sense ... in our world, anyway. But worlds can expand,and cultural enclaves can change.

None of this discussion is acknowledging the fact that some people have ambiguous or non-standard genders and are sick to death of not being acknowledged. The primary reason for the recent proliferation of gender-neutral attempts at pronouns is that these people are experimenting with the language to find the usage that works for them. These people will tell you what pronouns they prefer, and it's only courtesy to use them. Sooner or later, when trans and intersex and genderfluid people have their normality recognized, we'll have a viable pronoun (or two, or three; whatever it takes) that is a natural part of the language and arguments about it will seem antiquated and bigoted.

'Cause that's how that works.

In sims, of course, we only need two singular pronouns because we have to jump through hoops to get genderfluid sims. I'm inclined to cut the programmers some slack on that, because intersex, trans, and genderfluid people were much less vocal fifteen years ago, and because both separating gender and sex and increasing the gender dimension of programming by even one axis would greatly complicate the already hugely complex work they had to do. "Gender" as we conceive it is actually barely a thing at all in the game - gender distinctions are not made by most animations or coded limitations, and when such distinctions are made they are entirely based on sex, not gender per se - and even those are immediately undermined by the inclusion of male pregnancy.

Gender is thus an entirely player-mediated phenomenon, and that is one of the strengths of the game, coming hand-in-hand with the weakness of the binary system - which I find personally annoying because of the awkwardness of modeling my own sexual identity without resorting to editing tools. But at least it's doable. A truly satisfactory intersex sim is a puzzle to create.