"He Retains the Advantage" - The Importance of Pronouns in Chess

God and Jesus are also depicted as white men with beards.

But everyone understands there's no gender attached.  A white man is totally neutral and representative of all people, obviously.  Where did  you go to school anyway?

God is "He" the "Father" is definitely neutral also, and not due to the fact that Judaism and Christianity came from barbaric, sexist, patriarchal societies.

Ziggy, you remind me of my visits to Rekjavik.  Did you know that the phone books in Iceland are listed by the "first" name?!  The naming convention there follows the old Viking style, in which the child takes the father's name as -son or -dottir.  It is not a "surname," but rather. a "patronymic."  From the Nordic countries we recognize these now patronymic surnames with the endings -son and -sen.

Other cultures have had similar conventions.  For instance, in old Welch, following a Celtic tradition, the use of "ap" (son of) was formerly common.  And example would be Thomas ap Catesby Jones (Thomas son of Catesby Jones), who was a notable Welsh-American naval officer in the early 1800s.

I find naming conventions fascinating.

So "Carlson" would be son of Carl?  And in the phone book would be listed under "Carl?"

Don't know if I understood you.

Let me illustrate both crimes (split infinitives and misgendering) in the aforementioned well-known phrase:

"To boldly go where no man has gone before!"

At least, since the 1960s, they have correct the "no man" part. :-)

Let's take the case of Friðrik Olafsson, the Iceland grandmaster with the lovely "ð" (letter edh) in his name!

In the phone book he is listed, alphabetized as "Friðrik."  Suppose he had an adult daughter named "Helga."  She would be listed by that name, and known as "Helga Friðrikdottir."

I wonder if his dad might have been Olaf Friðriksson?

"The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day."

As this ridiculous quote shows, 'he' is clearly a gendered word. When a sentence mentions 'he', you are always picturing a male protagonist, and never a female one. You can recite your old English teacher's words until you're blue in the face, but the reality is that 'he' is not gender neutral. Yes, it's exclusionary.

Ever tried pronouncing that?

"you are always picturing a male protagonist, and never a female one."

It's irrelevant. If you think this is exclusionary it's because you focus on the non-essential characteristics and not the essential ones.

If I make an example of someone and I make her have brown hair and a blue shirt perhaps to make it more involved/interesting, does this mean I am assuming that women with blonde hair have nothing to do with the issue, or that men have nothing to do with the issue? Am I excluding women who don't prefer blue shirts?

Mind you, I have read books where "she" is used as the general pronoun instead. In fact, I do tend to picture a female in this case, but that doesn't make me feel excluded. It just means that a woman in this case is representing everyone. When you are looking for an example of
"any person," you can pick anyone from the population, white or black, male or female, and it will successfully represent such a category :)

"The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day."

Men can't wear a pantyhose? :)

But ok, we'll not be too socially radical here and just assume they can't :) Well, then it doesn't really make sense to use a male as a general example because this sort of thing doesn't apply to all people. He would not successfully represent the people he is supposed to represent.

One of the positive things of using just one standardized pronoun for this sort of thing is that it would improve clarity, given that everyone understood it. That way, for example, when you see the word, "she," you would know it was talking about someone specific. If some authors use "he" and others use "she," there is a bit less clarity because there is no shortcut; you will definitely have to look at the context to see whether they are being used in a specific or general sense. "He" tends to be more commonly used, so for economical reasons it's easier to stick with that. If "she" was more common I would have said to stick with that.

But, that's just my opinion. I can understand why people would disagree.

"Black wants to capture their pawn on c5 with their bishop."

Ok. Sometimes I think "they" and such can work, but here? Just... eew, gross. You might say we should replace the first "their" with "white's" and the second "their" with "black's." Maybe, but if I had to use a pronoun, I would definitely prefer either "he" or "she" rather than "their."

'Black wants to capture his pawn with his bishop' is no better.

Fair enough, you got me. I was thinking the first "their" could be replaced with "white's" and the second "their" replaced with "his," but even then I guess clarity isn't perfect because either white or black might be the "his." Then again, "Black" is the only true person mentioned; "white's pawn" refers to a pawn, not the white player.

So, "Black wants to capture white's pawn on c5 with his bishop" seems good after all. Again I find "their bishop" pretty yucky there. Whose bishop? Is chess being played by a team of people all of a sudden? Especially for a game like chess, let's keep it two player.

You don't have to share their reasons. Someone could think 2 + 2 = 4 because they like ice cream and I'd think they're stupid. I'd still agree with them, 2 + 2 = 4.

A black man can represent all people; a white man can; a white woman can; a Chinese woman can; a person with glasses can; a person without glasses can; a person who owns a car made in 2002 can; and so on. And this is because they have the essential characteristics needed to be a person.

It's interesting, btw, that it was natural for me to use "they" in the 1st paragraph -- sometimes it's natural to use it, other times not.

Black wants to capture her pawn with his bishop.

Problem solved :)

[edit] No wait....

That implies women always play white, men always play black

Women leave free pawns hanging about

Men are more aggressive........

<ewww>, and even more so, <ewww, gross>, is hugely womanly vocabulary, Elubas... one to avoid for us guys. 

Ah, your vocabulary usage is limited by its associations with manliness/womanliness? Sad :)

Tell me you did it on purpose for sarcastic pleasure, I leave you alone :-)