The Gender-Neutral Pronoun: 150 Years Later, Still an Epic Fail

[Shana A]

The Gender-Neutral Pronoun: 150 Years Later, Still an Epic Fail

Posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 8:37 am
By Dennis Baron

http://blog.oup.com/2010/08/gender-neutral-pronoun/

Every once in a while some concerned citizen decides to do something about the fact that English has no gender-neutral pronoun. They either call for such a pronoun to be invented, or they invent one and champion its adoption. Wordsmiths have been coining gender-neutral pronouns for a century and a half, all to no avail. Coiners of these new words insist that the gender-neutral pronoun is indispensable, but users of English stalwartly reject, ridicule, or just ignore their proposals.

Recently, Guardian columnist Lucy Mangan called for a gender-neutral pronoun:

The whole pronouns-must-agree-with-antecedents thing causes me utter agony. Do you know how many paragraphs I've had to tear down and rebuild because you can't say, "Somebody left their cheese in the fridge", so you say, "Somebody left his/her cheese in the fridge", but then you need to refer to his/her cheese several times thereafter and your writing ends up looking like an explosion in a pedants' factory? ... I crave a non-risible gender-neutral (not "it") third person sing pronoun in the way normal women my age crave babies.          The Guardian, July 24, 2010, p. 70

[Muffin]

Yeah I tried that whole "ze" thing but it just makes me develop a french accent which is really annoying.. because it's so addictive.

[brainiac]

We do have one that people often use: "they". The thing is, it's considered improper English, like the columnist said (prescriptivists can go $%^!* in a ^#*&%$ for all I care), and I feel like if you explicitly asked people to refer to you by "they", it would still be as awkward initially as ze or hir. But... it might stick better because it already exists in the language and people already use it as a gender-neutral term, even if it's considered bad English.

[Julie Marie]

"They" is plural and as such I've tried to find a gender neutral singular pronoun but can find nothing that is recognized as acceptable.  "Ze" didn't work for me either. 

Let's see... thy, thou.. no, that doesn't work.  Him, her, hyr?  His, hers, hyr(s)?  He, she, che?

[brainiac]

Well, Julie Marie, it's OFFICIALLY plural. But I've heard a lot of people say things like, "Make sure no one forgets their coat when they leave" instead of "his or her coat" or "when he or she leaves". Or, if they don't know the gender of a person, they'll say, "Tell Alex that they need to come to the next meeting."

This usage is technically incorrect. But technical never stopped language. 

[Shana A]

Singular they and them was considered proper usage during the 18th - 19th centuries. Perhaps it can be brought back, although I generally get strange looks when I use it   

Z

[Vicky]

I'm being deluged in acronyms these days, maybe we can come up with a few that will become the  new pronouns?     I admit I can't come up with any at the minute that are not going to really light fires, but I am in a bitchy mood just now because of acronym overload I just got in an E-Mail.

[Arch]

As Zythyra notes, "they" was okay until fairly recently. But I really must object to this remark:

That means we either have to word our way round the problem by using plurals – which don't mean quite the same thing – or we're reduced to the verbose and clunking construction: 'If an MP steals taxpayers' money, he or she should be ashamed of himself or herself.' ('Themselves', employed to stand for a singular MP, would, of course, be a grammatical abomination).

What's wrong with simply saying "An MP who steals taxpayer money should feel ashamed"? There's usually a good way around the clunkiness.

But, well, not always.

[Arch]

Oh, and I should point out that we do have a perfectly good singular gender-neutral pronoun, but some people object to it. I mean, some people object to "it."

[Vanessa_yhvh]

I got "shim" at the office once.

Exactly once.

[LynnER]

Shim???

At least it wasn't my brothers (he stopped using it after threats of violence)

S.H.it = she, he, it