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§14.5. Adapting text referring to other things
The family in the previous section - "[we]", "[us]", "[our]", "[ours]", "[ourselves]" - always referred to the player. But we also sometimes want to refer to other things without naming them. For example, how should we adapt this?
> EXAMINE TREE
It has no clear outline in this misty netherworld.
We can easily make the verb adapt - change the "has" to "[have]" - but the trick here is to make the "It" adapt to cases where what's examined is plural, or animate. What we want is:
Instead of examining in the Netherworld:
say "[regarding the noun][They] [have] no clear outline in this misty netherworld."
For example, this produces:
> EXAMINE ME
You have no clear outline in this misty netherworld.
> EXAMINE MARK
He has no clear outline in this misty netherworld.
> EXAMINE DRUMS
They have no clear outline in this misty netherworld.
Note that we have to say "[regarding the noun]", not just start in with "[They]", because nothing has been named so far in the sentence - so Inform doesn't know what object it refers to. "[regarding the noun]" prints nothing, and simply tells the printing part of Inform that the subject has changed.
This isn't always needed:
"[We] [have] a look at [the noun], but [they] [are] just too big."
works fine, because printing "[the noun]" changes the subject to that, and then "[they]" agrees with it automatically. The text might come out, for example, as:
I had a look at Peter Rabbit, but he was just too big.
You have a look at the chessmen, but they are just too big.
We have a look at ourselves, but we are just too big.
We have a family of five text substitutions here, matching those in the previous section:
"[They]" or "[they]"
"[Them]" or "[them]"
"[Their]" or "[their]"
"[Theirs]" or "[theirs]"
"[Themselves]" or "[themselves]"
There's also the peculiar impersonal non-object for English sentences like "It is raining" or "There are books":
These look pointless - but consider the two texts
"[We] [take] [the noun]. It [rain] harder."
"[We] [take] [the noun]. [It] [rain] harder."
The first one risks printing "We took the scissors. It rain harder.", because it makes "[rain]" agree with "scissors", which are plural. But the second text makes "[rain]" agree with "[it]". And, as a convenience:
do the obvious thing using the current story tense.
Finally, we occasionally want to agree with a number:
"Honestly, [dud count][regarding the dud count] of these [are] broken."
