3.17. Men, women and animals

| Chapter 3: Things |

| 3.17. Men, women and animals

Rounding out the standard kinds provided by Inform are four for living things: "person", which is a kind of thing, and "man", "woman" and "animal", all kinds of person. For instance:

> In the Ballroom is a man called Mr Darcy.

For the time being, men and women will be little more than waxworks: they will come to life only when we go beyond the present stage of creating an initial state of the world.

People can be male, female, or neuter: this is an attribute for the "person" kind, and it affects play at run-time a little, because the player can use "him" and "her" to refer to male or female people encountered, or "it" for neuter animals. Men and women are always male and female respectively, but the gender of an animal can be any of the three: male or female if we want (say) a stallion or a nanny goat; neuter if we want a beetle or an earthworm. The main question is whether we want to call the animal "him", "her", or "it". Animals are male unless we say otherwise:

> The mare is a female animal in the Stables.

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| Example Disenchantment Bay 9 Disenchantment Bay: enter the charter boat's Captain. |
RB

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