Correct use of gender in English language

[Biblin]

I've just stumbled across this issue myself and came looking for a way to resolve it.

English strings should have "their" not "his". I don't have the ability to change it as I have no translations but I'm happy to volunteer for the job if I can be granted permission.

It really shouldn't stay the way it is. It's a trivial change and there's no excuse for not doing it.

[dfmchfhf]

Biblin:
The use of singular "they" (their, them) had been brought up already, and as has been pointed out,

"Mary must place their piece" is just wrong.

Generally when translating to English I try to avoid having to use pronouns (gendered or singular "they"); Sawyer's example is a good one:

${actplayer} must choose a startposition.

Some other personal examples (from Through the Ages):
"${card_name}: ${player_name} skips his Political Action" to "${card_name}: ${player_name} does not play a Political Action";
"${player_name} scores ${culture} points for his happy faces (${nb})" to "${player_name} scores ${culture} points for having ${nb} Happy Faces"

(Of note: this is not always easy; I have yet to find an elegant way to avoid the use of "his" in "${player_name} increases his population for ${action} Civil Action(s) and ${cost} Food", for example)

[Inspector Spacetime]

Yes, "Singular they" is not grammatically correct and its usage is frowned upon by some groups. However, even those vary. I guess the average consensus among formal writers would be "avoid it if you can"

It is also universally understood and used quite commonly to get around gender pronoun issues... at least in the USA. I can't speak for its usage in other native English countries.

"${card_name}: ${player_name} skips his Political Action" to "${card_name}: ${player_name} does not play a Political Action";
"${player_name} scores ${culture} points for his happy faces (${nb})" to "${player_name} scores ${culture} points for having ${nb} Happy Faces"

Of course these changes are the ideal way of handling the problem, but using "their" should be acceptable when considering the limitations of the site.

[Biblin]

I agree with Gweedo. Given the limitations of the site, "they" and "their" should be acceptable. Whether or not it's grammatically correct, it's in common usage. And to argue that "Mary places their..." is poor wording but "Mary places his..." is fine is a little daft.

[squarerootofthree]

I'm resurrecting this old thread because I don't see a more recent discussion of it and would like this to not just fade into obscurity. I'd really love to see this changed on the site. I appreciate the complexities discussed earlier in the thread re: internationalization, but is there any reason we couldn't just use a macro for the player's gender (if they've selected it) like many of the translation strings?

So, to grab a random string from Seasons, instead of

• "${card_name}: ${actplayer} must add one card to his hand"

just have something like:

• "${card_name}: ${actplayer} must add one card to {gendered_pronoun} hand"

and use "his" or "her" based on the gender defined in the preferences? Now, if someone chooses to not select that in their preferences, I guess I'm ok with leaving it with one gender or the other.

But everyone is getting so tied up in knots about whether "they" is a grammatically acceptable (fwiw, I think it's better than nothing) that we're forgetting the fact that the current setup is just flat-out grammatically wrong.

[Een]

Something new about this: https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!forum/v ... 40&p=37316