Just call said friend Pat

Ah, StealthSigma, but I think you'll find those OED standards are precisely what I've said: common usage (and possibly respected authors as a bonus):
They do get grumpy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) I blame them for that, though, cuz I'm fine with it.

Secondarily, "it" generally refers to objects, not living things of indeterminate gender.

Hence my preference for "das."

And mine for "xe." Which I picked up from someone else.

Isn't das the German equivalent of it?

Speaking of gender ambiguous characters and funny character sheets, I once had a player in a D&D campaign that according to their character sheet was a "Female ninja that tried to look like a man after being raped by her uncle" and for several sessions most everyone believed she was a man. The delivery of the whole thing when she (the player) was explaining her character to me was so melodramatic that I had to try really hard not to laugh in her face when reading it because she was very obviously trying to be serious.

I think we've probably all met players like that at one time or another.

oh yeah, and she had pink hair...the ninja...

ninja with pink hair that was trying to look like a man....

You know a man is confident in his sexuality when he wears pink.

Ninja....pink hair...


But yeah, that must have been what everyone else thought too because nobody doubted her when she said her character was a male ninja of slight frame, slightly feminine features and pink hair...

Female...

Is her name, by any chance, Bubblegum?

Wait.... was that Sam? If it was, that makes me wonder if that character wasn't an outlet for some seriously repressed shit in her real life.

Or just a bro.

Get back to the original topic, ok? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yes please.

i just remembered something.
One of my GM's(yes, i have more than one) has a player Character for when the other one is GMing for us.
That character has a telescoping 11'-Staff on his Sheet.

Who hasn't? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Why an 11 foot pole?

i only got that part after he actually went and said it . .
"I ain't touching that with a ten foot pole! hand me my eleven foot pole!"

Well, you see, most telescoping poles, they only go up to ten, right? But this one goes up to eleven. That's one more, innit?

That too.
It's the sciency-pole, because in a certain other RPG, most traps have a reach of exactly 10 feet. so at 11 feet you are safe and can poke stuff still . .

Hmm, it would be a kinda mean idea for a close combat weapon though.
Specially made Telescoping Staff. Looks like the normal one, but goes 1m longer and gives +1 reach more . .

Nail. Head. Hit it.

OK, the talk of telescoping staves reminds me of a one shot at a Con where I couldn't help but sympathize with the team's Face, who was reasonably normal. Why?

Well, one of the other members of the team was Nik'norg, a Neotenous pygmy who only spoke Bantu or Swahili and some obscure sign language. Nik'norg usually dual-wielded telescoping spears, but kept a blowgun around. With injection darts of K-10. Which he would use on people he felt were insufficiently aggresive. Like his teammates.

And at the same time, he had to deal with Mngwml... a SURGED pixie with Cephalapoid Skull, a Third Eye, Gills and Striking Skin Pigmentation. He had been raised by a Lovecraftian cult and believed he was a priest destined to bring about a return of the Old Gods. And *he* only spoke Ryleh'an.

The run in question was... interesting.

Jesus.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" is the only logical response.