Getting away from man and woman in sdescs (poll)

[Angela Christine]

Have you ever found yourself typing "look woman" (or man) and ending up looking at your own character rather than the one you wanted to see?  I know I have.  I've seen folks try to get away from it, leaving gender out of their sdesc, or choosing words like girl or wench.  Some of the alternates seem out of theme to me, and others seem like they might be in-theme but no one uses them.  So give me your yea or nay on these descriptors:

Woman - bland
Girl
Wench
Damsel - expect to find yourself in distress
Maiden - err, how do you tell just by looking?
Chick - ok, it doesn't sound mideval, but what the hell?  "The elven chick" sounds cool
Bitch - who would describe herself as a bitch? probably the same people that use wench
Whore
Crone
Dame
Matron
Lady - probably only if you are a noblewoman


Man -bland
Boy
Stud
Catamite
Girly man
Fellow
Fella
Gent
Lord - only if you are a nobleman

Child
Urchin
Kid
Teen
Teenager
Youth
Girl
Boy
Tot - too young
Lass
Lad

Other suggestions?

Angela Christine

[Sanvean]

Wench  - too medieval, and conveys the wrong flavor
Damsel - much like wench
Chick - too modern
Bitch - Supposed to be appearance only, this seems like something that would be better roleplayed out
Whore - not supposed to have professions in the sdesc
Dame - see wench, damsel
Lady - like the others. I saw the something young lady on the game the other day, which apparently slipped through. Ugh.

Stud - should be roleplayed
Catamite - profession
Girly man - this is a joke, yeah?
Fellow - borderline
Fella - too slangy
Gent - see fella
Lord - rather not see this, even in nobility

Tot - as you say, too young

[Kankman]

I never fully agreed with the logic that got my "vagabon" rejected.

Here's my side of the story:

A young and filthy human boy. While you don't know whether or not he has a home just from looking at him, he can still look homeless. Ragged clothing, filth caked all over him. Shaggy hair, yadda yadda.

Even if he wore good clothes, he'd still look like a dirty little wretch. A vagabond in nice clothing. Furthermore, if he really did clean up, it would require a main desc change to give him the haircut and bath and stuff. At the same time, it would be easy enough to have the "vagabond" removed from the sdesc and replace it with a more generic term.

So please, powers that be... Approve my next vagabond!

[House Rising Sun]

I had a runt once. You've just got to think of what words best describe the character, including that ever-important noun. Words like whippersnapper and dude are great, but more often then not "man" is perfect.

[John]

red-head
brunette
blonde

I don't see anything wrong with having those instead (e.g. the tall brunette).

[Meep]

I personally prefer man or woman/race to gender-neutral nouns unless the person in question is androgynous. Usually when you meet someone it's fairly easy to determine what sex they are or they are attempting to appear as. I'm not the kind of person who feels compelled to look at someone ten times to make sure that 'the short blonde' is a man or a woman when I'm trying to casually refer to them. And I've seen instances where people, like me, who don't always -look- at a person have referred to the person with the gender-neutral sdesc as the wrong gender, even when their mdesc makes it extremely obvious that the person is one gender or the other.. i.e. someone referring the short blonde as a male when their description mentions them having long, honeyblond hair, wide hips, breasts the size of young asian children's heads and the word her is repeated thoroughly throughout the description.

Man and woman are fine for me.

[John]

I dunno. When I see people and they haven't talked it takes me a bit to work out what sex they are sometimes. I've also gotten into the habit of ass -v'ing everyone to find out how tall they are compared to me.

[Samoa]

red-head
brunette
blonde

I don't see anything wrong with having those instead (e.g. the tall brunette).

Redhead does not convey gender.

Females are brunette and blonde.
Males are blond.

[Bestatte]

I don't know where the blond vs. blonde thing came from, but according to all the entries for both on www.dictionary.com the two are synonymous and merely alternate spellings of the same thing. In none of the definitions does it imply that one is male and the other female. However, "blonde" is the french spelling of the word, which is an acceptable english spelling as well.

Maybe when you see the word "blond" it provides a male connotation to your own personal imagery, but that's you, and not the word.

For my own personal imagery, I always "saw" blond as being the color itself, while "blonde" being hair having that particular color. So a light-colored wooden desk would be blond, but a woman or man with light-colored hair would be blonde. But again, that's me, and not the word.

[krelin]

Would be cool if "lord" and "lady" happened automagically like "templar"...  (maybe hook the effect to the signet ring?).  I know that would save me a lot of embarrassment for not knowing OOCly who to bow at and who not to bow at.  

[Master Z]

I know it won't happen, so I'd like to admit my withstanding desire to play "the such and such bishounen"

The tall, dark-haired bishounen leaves south. <---- me

Anyway, I really don't mind constant use of man and woman. Its kind of like the constant use of elf in elven sdescs. They're an elf... thats that.

[Cenghiz]

Did you ever call a noble lady Sire? Or a templar woman Lord? I never use 'woman' as the keyword. That's the easy solution. I don't like spamming l <bla> l <bla> l <bla> in a tavern so having sexes in sdescs is a more suitable thing sometimes.

[Hoodwink]

I don't know where the blond vs. blonde thing came from, but according to all the entries for both on www.dictionary.com the two are synonymous and merely alternate spellings of the same thing. In none of the definitions does it imply that one is male and the other female. However, "blonde" is the french spelling of the word, which is an acceptable english spelling as well.

Word Usage
 
blond or blonde?

When describing the color of somebody’s hair, blond is normally used whether the person is male or female. Jane has blond hair. When used as a noun or adjective to describe somebody directly, blond is used of a man or boy and blonde of a woman or girl. He is blond. Jane is a blonde.

Similarly, brunette and brunet are used in this manner.

[gfair]

I notice that on many NPCs they will have two short descs - one actual sdesc, and another desc including action, so when the NPC moves, you see <sdesc> leaves west, but when you do a look in the room you see a differently-worded desc.

Perhaps characters could be given an option to have sdesc and sdesc two, and thus have man/woman in their sdesc, but more descriptive terms in the sdesc2?

[marko]

I notice that on many NPCs they will have two short descs - one actual sdesc, and another desc including action, so when the NPC moves, you see <sdesc> leaves west, but when you do a look in the room you see a differently-worded desc.

Perhaps characters could be given an option to have sdesc and sdesc two, and thus have man/woman in their sdesc, but more descriptive terms in the sdesc2?

The second sdesc is actually the ldesc (long description).  You can change this with change ldesc blah.

Personally, I feel that if the sdesc fits the character and upon looking at them that would be an obvious interpretation of how the character looks (eg, seeing a skinny little kid, ratty hair, dirty, possibly bruises, and wearing rags - you could argue that 'urchin' is fitting) then, yes you can use an 'alternate' form of man or woman (male, female).  

I have problems with people who use terms that are any of the following:

A) not obvious from their desc
B) are non-gendre indicative (like teen - this still requires a male or female supplement).
C) disruptive to the overall atmosphere of the location they are in

[Laeris]

I don't know where the blond vs. blonde thing came from, but according to all the entries for both on www.dictionary.com the two are synonymous and merely alternate spellings of the same thing. In none of the definitions does it imply that one is male and the other female. However, "blonde" is the french spelling of the word, which is an acceptable english spelling as well.

Maybe when you see the word "blond" it provides a male connotation to your own personal imagery, but that's you, and not the word.

For my own personal imagery, I always "saw" blond as being the color itself, while "blonde" being hair having that particular color. So a light-colored wooden desk would be blond, but a woman or man with light-colored hair would be blonde. But again, that's me, and not the word.

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/english/data/d0081661.html

http://kathyide.com/quiz.html

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/002.html

What does all this mean?  It means that the trends have been to consider blond the masculine form and to consider blonde the feminine form.  However, these pages suggest that this particular trend might be shifting.

All that being said, please watch how you approach your posts and refrain from being completely dismissive of someone else to the point of rudeness.  I expect a modicum of civility in these threads.

[Carnage]

I always say 'blond' and 'blonde' like 'color' and 'colour'. You people look way too deep into these things.

[Lazloth]

I never fully agreed with the logic that got my "vagabon" rejected.

+d and try again.

[Barzalene]

Would be cool if "lord" and "lady" happened automagically like "templar"...  (maybe hook the effect to the signet ring?).  I know that would save me a lot of embarrassment for not knowing OOCly who to bow at and who not to bow at.  :)

My only issue with that is it removes the opportunity to go anywhere unrecognized.

[Anonymous]

Would be cool if "lord" and "lady" happened automagically like "templar"...  (maybe hook the effect to the signet ring?).  I know that would save me a lot of embarrassment for not knowing OOCly who to bow at and who not to bow at.  

My only issue with that is it removes the opportunity to go anywhere unrecognized.

Well, in Allanak your sdesc could only be changed when you put on the signet ring, most of which I believe are silver, but I could be wrong.

[Barzalene]

Ok, gotcha. I wasn't being a good listener.
Right on, then.

[Kankman]

I never fully agreed with the logic that got my "vagabon" rejected.

+d and try again.

It was a typo in the post, I've had "vagabond" rejected twice. I waited a number of months before I tried the second time..

[Abascal]

a Garibadi fish is in the damsel fish family.

[Delerak]

If everyone wants to get technical, why not take out the templar sdesc and have them be normal like everyone else.  Afterall, a templar doesn't show the sex in the sdesc, nor would a character who doesn't know what templars are know that he/she is a templar.  How are they templars when they die and get stripped of their clothing, is a naked female templar still the blonde templar, I don't know, I guess templars are special. If you want I'll look at the templar robes code and take it out.  :roll:

[creeper386]

Condsidering the robe code adds in the templar after taking off the last word... I'd say the corpse works of the original sdesc. It wouldn't look at any changes the code does do to equipment, just the sdesc in the pfile most likely.

I wouldn't like nobles to have lord or lady, because they tend to wear similar clothing to their house Livery. What I WOULD like, is if more people wore their ring or SOMETHING. If your not around the city. See some gal dressed up like the person beside her, both look to be aides to some house. You won't be able to tell most the time that the first one is ACCTUALLY a noble. And sometimes, I think it goes along with some templars thinking people should bow all the time, they get all pissy because they didn't get the respect the deserve. So to any nobles, if you look like a house employee, don't expect to be treated like a noble because people can't tell the difference.

As to sdesc's... I like this thread. I don't think I've tried anything too out there. Might use the suggestions at a later date.

Creeper

[Delerak]

Actually I don't think it does, I remember during the infamous HRPT a templar died several times to a bug and the desc was not man it was templar.  The robe works only when the hood is up.

If they were NPCs they probably had templar in their sdesc, just like the soldiers do. If it was a PC... dunno.

[Templar eXtreme!]

Actually the templar in the HRPT's body was devoid of the Templar surname.
It was like the old thin man where as a like the old thin templar when he was alive and wearing the robe with the hood down.

I think maybe the robes only add the surname to the sdesc when in conjunction with the templar Guild.

Also one of the Lady Blue's had this happen too when she removed her robe she was just a woman.