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[GlyphGryph]

Like mentioned before, addiction certainly increases demand (and no one argued many drugs aren't terrible for you and, especially in the case of alcohol dependency, those around you), and demand, when it exceeds the legal supply but there are illegal ways to meet that demand, creates black markets, and black markets spawn violence.

But addiction is certainly not the only way to do so, and it doesn't even form the worse ones, imo, especially when the addictive substance is legal but just priced too high - see the black markets for humans and exotic flora and fauna to see some, where there is a real case to be made that being illegal and spawning a black market leaves us better off.

Drugs, thanks to the addiction aspect, do have one major difference, though - they both sell reliably and for huge profit margins. Its the same reason the government can even put the sort of tax they do on the stuff. (And its grossly immoral of them to do so, because I don't see protecting people from themselves as a valid reason to contribute to the spawning of extralegal market conditions)

[Truean]

Like mentioned before, addiction certainly increases demand (and no one argued many drugs aren't terrible for you and, especially in the case of alcohol dependency, those around you), and demand, when it exceeds the legal supply but there are illegal ways to meet that demand, creates black markets, and black markets spawn violence.

But addiction is certainly not the only way to do so, and it doesn't even form the worse ones, imo, especially when the addictive substance is legal but just priced too high - see the black markets for humans and exotic flora and fauna to see some, where there is a real case to be made that being illegal and spawning a black market leaves us better off.

Drugs, thanks to the addiction aspect, do have one major difference, though - they both sell reliably and for huge profit margins. Its the same reason the government can even put the sort of tax they do on the stuff. (And its grossly immoral of them to do so, because I don't see protecting people from themselves as a valid reason to contribute to the spawning of extralegal market conditions)

If black markets = higher than legal demand and addiction contributes greatly to demand, then addiction contributes greatly to higher than legal demand, which contributes to black markets. Thus addiction = black markets. I dunno.

I think I'll start a side project concerning stonesense and furniture placement. It's more fun than arguing. I do that too much.

Couches, fireplaces, little table looking things with drawers in them. Drawers built into the walls as storage spaces. More fun? Interior decoration is cliche for me. So what?
(I did not make stonesense, I'm just messing with it when people don't show the crap up for their appointments, because I can't focus on legal crap 24/7 [grumble])

[GlyphGryph]

Addiction is neither Necessary nor Sufficient. It certainly helps, though, not gonna argue that!

[Leafsnail]

Some sticklers think "I don't think they like it when you assign them a gender" is grammatically incorrect. I've gotten into arguments with English teachers about it.

...Many more than I care to count.

Shakespeare used singular they etc.  The idea that it's bad seems to have popped up far more recently.

[Skyrunner]

Some sticklers think "I don't think they like it when you assign them a gender" is grammatically incorrect. I've gotten into arguments with English teachers about it.

...Many more than I care to count.

Shakespeare used singular they etc.  The idea that it's bad seems to have popped up far more recently.

Of course, Shakespeare isn't exactly the best reference of modern English xD

I think that singular 'they' is a bit awkward in today's English.

[Flying Dice]

Some sticklers think "I don't think they like it when you assign them a gender" is grammatically incorrect. I've gotten into arguments with English teachers about it.

...Many more than I care to count.

Shakespeare used singular they etc.  The idea that it's bad seems to have popped up far more recently.

Of course, Shakespeare isn't exactly the best reference of modern English xD

I think that singular 'they' is a bit awkward in today's English.

Heh, Shakespeare pretty much invented half of modern English.

I'm sort of surprised that is coming up at all. Quite apart from the singular 'they' being correct, it makes sense and is convenient. Though 'xe' could be a substitute, if people would start using it. But there is no reason to drop the singular they when it has a clear role and no good substitute.

[Skyrunner]

What I meant was despite Shakespeare being the inventor of half of modern English, English has changed a bit from then, and quite a few of his vocabulary terms are different today.

Sometimes, the grammar is different too.

Though I don't think the grammar changed much, just mostly the words.

[Leafsnail]

Shakespeare was one of the earlier ones, but there have been plenty of other more recent authors who used it (Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw etc).  It sounds perfectly natural when the situation demands it... indeed, often any alternative sounds ridiculous (give me a better word for, say, "Nobody in their right mind would do a thing like that").  It's been in use constantly and it seems to be just some style guides in America who have developed a weird aversion to it.

[fqllve]

I want to say it's because English is going through a period of rapid change right now, starting with the further neutering of the language and now with the rise of the internet. Some people are so averse to change that they'll latch on to anything as the right and natural way even if it isn't and hasn't ever really been true. It's the same thing that makes people say stuff like hopefully can only modify verbs and not entire clauses. Just looking for something to stand against.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Though 'xe' could be a substitute, if people would start using it.

Now that just plain sounds bad.

[Skyrunner]

It would be nice if we (as in we, the English speaking people) have an authority of language like the Real Academia Espaņola that regulates grammar and stuff o_O

Is there a Royal Academy of English that I haven't heard of yet, though?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Is there a Royal Academy of English that I haven't heard of yet, though?

What is and is not in the Oxford English Dictionary is widely accepted to be the ultimate authority on what constitutes English. 

[Skyrunner]

But the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't have grammer... does it?

I'm not the owner of a copy, sadly.

[scriver]

It would be nice if we (as in we, the English speaking people) have an authority of language like the Real Academia Espaņola that regulates grammar and stuff o_O

Is there a Royal Academy of English that I haven't heard of yet, though?

I think I said it in this thread just the other day, but I'll repeat myself: Grammar does not define how language should be used, how the language is used defines it's grammar. Language is always and constantly changing, evolving, growing and falling apart, and so it should be.

[palsch]

I'm sort of surprised that is coming up at all. Quite apart from the singular 'they' being correct, it makes sense and is convenient. Though 'xe' could be a substitute, if people would start using it. But there is no reason to drop the singular they when it has a clear role and no good substitute.

Xe and similar (I've more often seen ze/zhe/zir) tend to be more politically pointed. That is, the people who use it will still often use they for gender neutral, but zhe for someone who identifies strongly as trans*.

There are people who I would refer to as ze/zhe simply because it's how they identify themselves, but I would rarely use them as a general gender neutral term.