Tomska comes to mind as a pretty hilarious example - not just because he turns them into skits, thats normal enough. He had a whole saga trying to figure out how far he could push the boundries of the VPN company sponsoring him before they would start intervening. It started off simple enough, with the South Park philosophy of “Add provocative stuff so they cut that, rather than the jokes we like.” Rather than editting they script, the approved it as is. He thought it was funny, and took that as a challenge. After increasingly crass and violent ads (on-brand for him, and with appropriate content warnings) eventually ended up going so far as to include an ad that even he considers way too far. Said ad later had to be editted out of the video it was included in. In my opinion, despite obviously being very all ads, its collectively some of the funniest content hes made.

He’s his videos recapping the saga:

You underestimate how bad we can be at cooking. It takes me like an hour just to peal and chop up ingredients for even a simple dish like mashed potatoes or stir fry.

Halve of the scheduled trains didn’t run today in Belgium.

Only half were cancelled? Man, that sounds nice.

The question is “Could you win a point in a game of tennis…”. Technically it doesn’t specify that it has to be a single game. You could play a million games against her, and as long as you score one point, you still “won a point in a game of tennis”. Notably, it also says “could” rather than “would” so its just asking for a >0% possibility, under any circumstance. She is still human, so theres enough factors that something “could” allow a win. Is this completely overthinking this and going against the spirit of the question? Yes, but we’re already talking about the absurd hypothetical of putting a random non-athlete in a potentially infinite number of games against a professional athlete, so…

At least where I am, the few that are available are only available in a buggy app that crashes more often than not.

English being your first and only language isn’t much of a brag when half this country can barely read lol.

You you think those people benefit from not having a non-gendered, singular pronoun they can use? Because those people are the ones who determine how language use used.

Maybe you should just listen to the people that identify that way and use these pronouns in their lives and don’t have problems.

My problem isn’t with people picking that as a pronoun. For all I care, someone could pick something straight out of Who’s on First and I’d use it. My problem is that there is a single “accepted” non-binary set of pronouns, and it overlaps with the only plural set. If “they” is the word someone is most comfortable with, so be it. At the same time, it shouldn’t be, effectively, the only option.

I’ve read 2 trilogies recently, both worlds having an additional gender that uses they/them pronouns, one of the series has them as a POV character. Not confusing at all and one book of it makes you use to it real fast

I’ve read a few books featuring non-binary characters using they/them pronouns. One was fine, two I had to drop because I kept having to double take what I read. As you said, half the US can barely read. Some of those people are authors. If they can’t communicate their ideas, then the language is failing. English needs to be (or rather, will end up being) usable by everyone, and if anything, you implying that I’m not intelligent enough to use “they” right proves my point.

Yes. Criticsm of the English language for not better supporting non-binary people. So transphobic. By advocating for the creation of a new non-gendered word, I’m not advocating for a more inclusive language, I’m actually part of a conspiracy with anyone who ever supported or used pronouns like “Xer”, “Zer”, and “Hir” to destroy trans rights.

Also, you’re accusing me of not knowing English, when its literally my first and only language. If that is your rebuttal, clearly you don’t have much to back up your beliefs.

Edit: and when I went to your profile to check for qualifications, literally the top one is admitting to being a hexbear user. You’re really singling out shitjustworks as problematic?

When I was writting that, I assumed it was about the party, so clearly not so unambiguous. It could conceiveably refer to either - doubly so in casual speech where rules are bent. Fill up a books worth of text about a character using they/them pronouns (esspecially written by a bad writer) and you get confused often.

To be clear, in ideal English, its easy to use. Most English is not ideal, with words being changed, dropped, reordered, ect. based on the speaker or writer’s whim in the moment. All that is before factoring in regional varients of English.

Every example you provided was extremely unambiguous and without anything that might require distinction between singular and plural. Often language isn’t that simple. For example, “Fion had finally joined the party and they were happy about it.” Who does “they” refer to in that context? Yes, you can write/speak your way around it, but that adds extra difficulty that isn’t suited for casual speaking/writing. That is why people (who aren’t transphobes) don’t like it as a pronoun and would rather have a new word.

Smudge the Cat at (6,9)

Smudge the Cat at (6,9)

Red at 1,1