Ask Your Stupid Questions Here! (Please help me...)

[tchotchkeco]

I’m left handed and still wear it left.

[adrienclifton]

I think this is a dumb rule, so I would loophole the shit out of it.
If you can't technically solicit sales here, solicit traffic. Get people interested in your art, and link back to outside sites. Anytime you can post examples of your work, include a link to your commission info on other sites, preferably in tow with other links to your work. This would include sharing your portfolio, showing off recent art work, anything you get to share that could serve as a sample, make sure leave a link to your blog or website with it. Promote yourself in every other way to get people clicking so that eventually they will see your commission info.

Edit: Also maybe adding to your page description that questions are welcome, or something to that extent, welcoming people to message you personally. Then they can ask about your commission info if they're interested, without you outright mentioning you take commissions.

[Shanny8]

Okay I have a stupid question

What is up with the "gender/pronouns" thing? I mean, I kinda get it, but then I dont....

[Shanny8]

So it's already been explained that forum goers aren't allowed to "solicit sales on the forums"

Yeah I got snapped on earlier this year for throwing up a post letting folks know that CSP was having a sale. I wasnt even aware that this was a violation...but I didnt make a stink about it.

[silverraven0]

Can I ask for the context?

[adrienclifton]

I'm trans and patient so I can probably answer this really well. You'll have to be a little more specific though.

Your gender is a facet of your identity. There are more than just "man" or "woman," but those are the most common in western culture. Not everyone will feel comfortable with the one they're raised as though, and since it's a piece of who you are as an individual it's best to listen when someone tells you who and what they are.

Pronouns refer to a part of speech used to refer to people. It includes words like he, she, they, and so forth.

[Shanny8]

Twitter profiles. They'll have their name & stuff and then they have the pronoun like "she/her" or "they/them"...

[adrienclifton]

Oh! it's so that you'll know how to refer to that person online, since it can be more vague interacting with people over the internet than face to face. It lets you know whether to call someone he, she, they, etc, and gives you a little bit of information about who that person is. Just like you would include a name sometimes, or your age, what you do for a living, or even your astrological sign. Just a little piece of your bio.

[SleepingPoppy]

To add to @adrienclifton gender can be considered a spectrum between male and female, rather than a binary. Some people just feel they're a "them". They/them can be a singular, and it is not gramatically incorrect to use they/them for a person who does not want use male or female pronouns. ^^

[silverraven0]

Owh~ just people's things I guess. Some peoples will get upset if one called them with the wrong pronount for their gender, so some peoples just state them down in advance.

For me personally, I usually will call people's on the internet as "They" if I'm not sure about their gender.

For real life however, we don't use he or she or they on my country cause we don't have a gender specific pronoun.

It doesn't matter for me cause it could be corrected when in conversation but for them, that is their identity, so if people got it wrong some actually feeling hurt for it.

[Shanny8]

@adrienclifton @silverraven0 @SleepingPoppy Cool...thanks for the education! Def trying to be aware and not do/say anything stupid.

[adrienclifton]

Very much welcome!
I was worried at first that it would be a rude question but you were very nice.

The only stupid question is the question that is never asked tbh!! Never be afraid to ask if you aren't sure.

[Zaboem]

Weeeeell, it is grammatically incorrect to use THEM in reference to someone singular. That's according to the AP Style Guide, the Oxford New American Dictionary, and countless dusty high school English text books. The thing is that there is no better alternative in contemporary English. The standard advice is to dodge the problem by avoidance of pronouns (source: Grammar Girl podcast), but no one believes that advice is helpful (including Grammar Girl). Some writers have just chosen to settle on using "them" and "their" as the least terrible option.

[SleepingPoppy]

A brief history of singular ‘they’ | Oxford English Dictionary

I wasn't thinking more along the lines that it's been a functional part of our language for a long time, independent of its usefulness toward trans/nonbinary people.

[nostalgicroxas]

Honestly, it just makes me chuckle back to the Ye Olde Days of the internet when chats were filled with ASL? ASL? ASL? ASL?!?
So... annoying. Nothing like MySpace/LiveJournal logic seeping into Twitter. I feel like I can tell the age of someone who posts ASL's modern version including pronouns since it seems so... younger aged group?

But that's because a lot of the people I talk to are old-time net vets and are comfortable in their gender and sexuality and never ever feel the need to post it online as a thing to validate it. They simply do not care if some rando online calls them a "he" when everyone who knows them from real life knows to refer to them as a "she".

[nostalgicroxas]

I think English invented a "xie" "xier" "xe" thing to refer to those who didn't want "he" and "she" in the last 20 years and it just hasn't caught on because it's a 'new word'.

Third-person pronoun | Alternation of she and he

[Zaboem]

Oh yeah, there is precident. I've heard that Shakespeare once used they in the singular, but I haven't found that instance yet. These inconsistent instances might be errors or signs of a usage psssing in and out of favor regularly. There's no clear way of knowing. It's still not grammatically correct by any organized standard though to use a singular they -- at least not yet. Expect judgement (both spoken and unexpressed judgement) by readers whenever you make the choice to use a singular they.

Thanks for the link to the article though, it was fun.

P.S. The whole language could use a huge overhaul.

@nostalgicroxas There were a few attempts during the 1990s to create new words that fill this gap in the language. Personally, I favored tey, tem, & teir as singular versions of they, them, and their. All of these invented words went over like lead balloons in a china shop.

[adrienclifton]

Get off of my topic and do not come back.

[vothnthorvaldson]

English is not my first language, but I learnt 'they' as having no actual gender or number, for eg. if you say "They changed the homepage", there is zero information about gender or number of people (it could be just one). I didn't know English assumed it was plural just because it asks for plural grammar.
It feels weird, because it's like assuming the French word 'vous' is plural because the following verb is always plural. Grammatical number/gender does not systematically match actual number/gender in French (as well as some other Romance languages), and it's kind of.. normal? Expected?. I never thought of that about English.

[adrienclifton]

They can be singular or plural. They is not "gramatically incorrect" if that is what the person is using as their pronoun, for example someone who does not call themself "he" or "she."

Zaboem is flat wrong, and that is the single most irritating argument. I'd call it a "pet peeve" but honestly its more than that. It most certainly strikes a nerve, as I have several friends who use they/them as their pronouns.

Language is always changing. English is no exception. When language fails to function, we invent new words or expand their meaning. No language is stagnant except the dead ones. Further, when you don't know who did something, you say they singular. It already exists as "grammatically correct" and saying that the singular they can't or shouldn't be used is bullshit.