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Anonymous
>>63572 You're absolutely right: "he" can't be used as a plural because it most certainly is a singular form. The "he" in the post that started all this commotion should've been replaced with a real plural "they" to imply that they don't know BlackMage's gender. It may seem odd at first since this isn't used much in daily talk or even literature, because we usually know by some clues which gender the person under conversation represents. In the interweb this of course causes many misunderstandings - some female surfers even seem to get genuinely pissed at someone just because they couldn't magically guess that they're women. I must agree "fyi i am a girl" seemed a bit snappy to me as well, but knowing BlackMage's style of writing I realised it wasn't. Unfortunately some languages are still very chauvinist (e.g. in English we say "men" or "mankind" when referring to human beings), so let's not get all touchy-feely if someone referes to us as if we were guys. And yes, I'm implying that I'm a gal, too ;) One of the reasons I love my mother tongue (Finnish) is the fact that we only have one word for "he" and "she" - that way you'll never end up hurting people's feelings, and also it gives poetry and other literature great possibilities, 'cause you don't have to reveal anyone's gender if you wish the text to seem ambiguous.
What I've noticed btw, a funny thing, that in most other 4chan boards people get all "TITS OR GTFO" if someone says they're a girl, but here in /po/ it's starting to look more like "PENIS OR GTFO" when a claimed male posts something :D
Well, saged 'cause this was all just linguistic babble. ^^; Maybe I should start using a nick too, since I seem to hang around in /po/ almost every time I sit on my computer - and that's often!
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