intfiction.org

This is something I couldn't figure out.

Two questions, one of which is surely trivial and the other will surely prove to be (as usual):
1) Why do I have to make that Understand rule? If I type "x man", Inform says "You can't see etc."--- while the PRONOUNS test gives an "him" for uncle Oren.
2) I've set the printed name "uncle Oren" 'cause I feel "You can see Uncle Oren here." as terribly wrong. Too bad, if I do something else, the answer is (sic and i.e.) "uncle Oren does xxx", with the first letter in lowercase.

How do I work around this (I mean the second question, the first works: it's just for polish's sake)

Thanks a lot!

As for number 2, just don't capitalize "uncle Oren" in the first place and you won't have to worry about it:


ETA: if that source looks ugly, you could do this:

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Skinny Mike

As for 1, Inform doesn't automatically understand things by their kind name (see point #7 in 4.17 - "Review of Chapter 4: Kinds"). However, even if it did, that wouldn't have affected your code since you made Oren a "person" rather than a "man" -- a (sub)kind of person. The reason the parser recognizes Oren as "him" is unrelated; the person kind has a gender property and it just so happens the default for that is masculine. Therefore, when Oren gets mentioned by the game, he's set as the default object for parsing the pronoun "him."

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Skinny Mike

Thanks a lot, it works.

It was trivial, as I thought.

So, is there a way around it? I mean, if I say "oren is a man" does it work? Will check.

Anyway, looks like I7 is sexist.

If you mean having the parser automatically understand "man" as uncle Oren, then no, Inform doesn't automatically understand any kinds by their internal name. The way "around" it is to manually add the understand phrases:


Now the player can refer to any man or a woman in the game as MAN or WOMAN.

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Vorple UI library — Beta testing site — Blog

Just a note that as a native American English speaker, "You can see Uncle Oren here" seems correct to me with the capital U. When "Uncle" or "Aunt" is used as part of the name, I capitalize it; so "You can see Uncle Oren here," but "You can see your uncle Oren here." Consider the way that Cousin Itt from the Addams family always gets a capital C.

And as a native American English speaker and a copy editor by profession, I can confirm that Matt is correct. "You can see uncle Oren here" is, in fact, incorrect.

-Kevin

Well, what to say. It is really precious to have such insights. That's the kind of mistake I will make all my life, without knowing...
This solves the problem... twice!

Thanks for your help.

I do believe "your uncle Oren" is the correct spelling, however. In that case, "uncle" isn't part of his name.