If the Arbiter is female shouldn't she be called the Arbitress?

[Monster Hunter]

you dont see female druids get called druidess now do you?

probably because historically there were no female druids so there was no need for the gendered name.

[Hero2Zer0]

you dont see female druids get called druidess now do you?

also you don't see female Knights call Nitrous either

[Monster Hunter]

Ok I'll remember this next time I meet King Elizabeth


Make sure you pronounce it right so that it sounds like albatross

Queen elizebeth has many usualy male titles but that mostly because those are just titles that 99% of the time went to men due to hereditary rights, as a queen though she got them with the crown,normally male titles she has such as.

Duke of Normandy
Lord of Mann
Lord High Admiral

[Saltysquidoon]

1. I find it hilarious people are just assuming feminine forms of words are somehow innately negative and patronising. Senatrix (female senator) is just about the most badass word ever and if I was ever made senator I would demand to be addressed as such regardless of gender.

2. People smugly posting "You don't call X an Xess do you?" to get their moral superiority hit of the day. Please remember you're being anglocentric and needlessly discriminatory towards languages that cannot but apply the masculine or feminine because of their structure.

[Zigrifid]

Havent checked a lot about shadowlands im trying to go fresh into action,but who cares we will all say : LFM arb (if its a boss or soemthing)

[Nynax]

She should. Blizzard is sexist again.

no no, Arbitress would be sexist. Haven't you heard? Gendered labels like actress and waitress are sexist and offensive to those that identify as nonbinary!

[huth]

Personally I prefer Arbiter.

However, everyone coming at OP ought to stop attacking them for how dumb it sounds or gender roles and direct your hate here:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arbitress

OP makes a valid point, not like they just arbitrarily added the -ess at the end. (Pun intended.)

I don't remember anybody complaining that the word wouldn't exist. A real word can still sound bad.

[Aresk]

Grammatical and biological gender are rather different things, though. At least some of those languages don't have a neutral gender, either, so everything has to have a masculine or feminine descriptor because the only other option is to not have one.

The fact that grammatical and biological perspectives are different was sort of my point. The topic at hand is a grammatical topic (what word to use to refer to a specific individual), and the poster I was quoting was attempting to enforce a biological lens from which to look at the issue. There's more nuance in how to refer to someone or something than their biology (or lack thereof).

[LordVargK]

Because Blizzard gave her one when they wrote up material discussing her.

Obviously. But the arbiter doesn't need a sex. It's an entity. Like N'Zoth.

That's a very limited world view. Lots of things that do not reproduce are prescribed genders. If you examine the romance languages, for instance, you'll see most things are given either a masculine or feminine descriptor. Reproduction isn't the basis of gender.

I'm aware of that. I live in Germany, where everything has a gender. But the english language doesn't know grammatical genders. "He" and "She" are personal pronouns for men and women (or things with male or female names) and "It" is for everything else. There are no articles for words, there is just "the". Only if you talk about a person you use the respective pronouns, and the usage of those pronous depends on the sex (biological gender) you are talking about.

Since Blizzard is an english speaking company, developing a game in english and therefore not bound by curious grammatical rules, it would be way in their power to simply ignore those trifles.

That explanation works for dwarves, gnomes, humans, troggs, vrykul, tol'vir, mogu, and the like, but it doesn't work for the majority of races. Goblins, trolls (and by extension elves), tauren, pandaren, draenei, anything from Draenor, etc. weren't. The Curse of Flesh only affected the titan-forged, which were only created on Azeroth. There are other flesh creatures beyond those.

As I said, there will probably never be an explanation for the origin of life in the Warcraft Universe

The easiest way to tell gender is to look it up. Most significant characters (including dungeon/raid bosses) have a prescribed gender, and it doesn't always neatly match the expectation. Skitra, for instance, is male, despite most people in my raid using the feminine pronoun. Blackwater Behemoth is an organic creature, and thus likely has a sex, but uses the gender neutral "it" pronoun (or more likely was prescribed a lack of gender by Azshara). When in doubt, I generally consult the dungeon journal first and then expand my search to other sources if the gender isn't identified there (though generally I don't care enough to look beyond the dungeon journal).

I assume those pronouns are often just grammatical and not an indicator of the actual sex of a creature. For example, G'huun's pronoun is "he", although he hardly can be considered male, as he is a old god. So, in the case of the Arbiter, whose gender is female, she can still be a entity without sex. Which she has to be, by definition, because if she would be genetically female there must exist (or have existed) another, genetically different, arbiter. And since the arbiter is "ancient" and "older than the titans" I would expect the she was the only arbiter ever in existance.

Bottom line is: While grammatically Blizzard decided for some reason to make her female, she is still sexless from a biological point of view. Thus the title "Arbiter" (generic masculine) is correct, because an "Arbitress" would require a genetic female.

[enigma77]

The English language is really weird when it comes to gendered nouns.

It's almost criminal, I'll better call a police officeress.

[Sagenod]

Guys it's 2020 and zhe wants to be called the Zarbiter

[Aleksej89]

Afaik irl the "ress" was in ye old days added to certain titles/roles to signify that as a woman they do not hold the same power/rights as a male would in the same position.

Since some words sound cool (like huntress) i guess they was kept in the language despite the strict gender roles/limitations being removed.

Arbitress sounds kinda... forced a bit, it does not sound as fluid as huntress or mistress.

[Snowcharm]

Because it's a function/title. You don't see CEO/CEOes for women. But hey SJW's need their bone tickled...

[HitRefresh]

Because it's a function/title. You don't see CEO/CEOes for women. But hey SJW's need their bone tickled...

I thought SJWs wanted genders removed from titles, which is why you just say police officer and not policeman or fireman etc.

On the other hand, Oscars still do best actor and best actress, and they're usually act like they're advocates of gender equality and such, so I don't know.

[Musta]

The arbiter is an "it"