In light of Nexus Mods and Mod DB banning the No Pronouns mod for Starfield, I figured I would look around for alternative sources and collect them in one place for others’ convenience. This seems like a good place to put them.

Trusted

Caution Advised

  • Eggyhead@artemis.camp
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    10 months ago

    Just off the top of my head: In some US dialects, rather than a single word changing between negative and positive form (e.g. “I didn’t take any pictures”), instead an entire sentence is shifted into a negative mode (“I didn’t take no pictures”). Traditional grammar rules would dictate that as a double negative, implying the speaker did in fact take pictures, but only an idiot would actually choose interpret it that way.

    Next, we have the impact of the internet. “lol” might occasionally be spoken aloud in many circumstances as a substitute for “that’s funny” or something similar. Colloquial written English is all over the place. We now not only use “lol”, but “fwiw,” “afaik,” and many others.

    Then there’s emoji. We’re basically using glyphs to express ideas, not unlike how kanji works, and traditional rules of grammar don’t always apply when you’re expressing an idea through pictures, though it’s interesting when it does. Animated GIFs and memes often butcher grammar rules without sacrificing any understanding of intent.

    A simple google search turns up many more examples than I could possibly be aware of.

    Now it’s your turn. Feel free to explain why you think using “they” as a singular pronoun applies as a grammar rule violation in the 21st century. If you can’t use more than a typical snarky one or two-liner, you should just consider this argument lost and rethink your life.

      • Eggyhead@artemis.camp
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        10 months ago

        Dialects aren’t the actual language. They’re just wilful ignorance.

        Say everyone bakes a potato. If your neighbor baked theirs differently than you, would that mean they’re ignorant?

        And, again, vocabulary isn’t grammar.

        Good for you? No one said it was.