Hello guys and dolls.
I'm curious as to the usage and origin of gender neutral pronouns. Sorry for being redundant if this has been touched on before.
Does anyone know how long they have been in use?

I see them on your profiles, but don't know which one is the counterpart to he/she, his/hers, etc.
If someone could give the terms and their meanings, I'd be grateful.

I remember hearing something about them not being used on the street, just the internet or in print.
Is this true?

What is the proper way to begin addressing someone by them?
When informed that someone is androgyne, is it better to use these or the original he/she before you know them?
Or should you always just ask before addressing them?
Is there only one set of gender neutral pronouns, or more?

Thanks for satiating my curiousity.

Nero

I believe all the answers to your questions and much more can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
Enjoy!

-Emerald 

Honestly, I think it's best to ask someone if you should use gender neutral pronouns on that person.  And which ones.  There are multiple sets and some people do not use them.

I cannot use them.  The intentional plural they and every set of gender neutral pronouns that I have seen makes my head spin and sends me into an OCD panic attack.  In fact, the night most of my friends found out about my OCD was the night one of my friends asked me about pronouns.  I had a massive panic attack because my brain translated that as an attack on grammar.

In general, I only use my own name.  For the purposes of pronoun substitution, I decapitalise it.

So a sentence might be "Tay picked up tays sponge and began to wash taysself.  Tay's cat came in and began chewing on tays shower curtain."

Quote from: Tay on June 29, 2007, 01:19:47 PM
In general, I only use my own name.  For the purposes of pronoun substitution, I decapitalise it.

So a sentence might be "Tay picked up tays sponge and began to wash taysself.  Tay's cat came in and began chewing on tays shower curtain."

hmm that's original. and simple.

Hm. I usually use the third-person pronoun as singular: they/their/theirs.
However, I usually try to avoid using any pronoun when referring to myself, and personally don't mind being adressed with feminine pronouns (or masculine for that matter). 

The whole Sie/hir Ze/mer (etc-etc) completely confuses me, and I actually think it sounds kind of annoying... xD