Musings on gender-neutral pronouns

[luzula]

I have so many things on my to-do list and instead I'm writing this post on language, specifically pronouns.

As we all know, English has no universally accepted gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun that can refer to a person (other than the formal "one"). (Neither does Swedish, incidentally. *envies Finnish*) Thus the "he or she", but that gets awkward. I was reminded of this when I browsed the podfic section of the Help Japan Delicious account, and found the following two examples of how to handle this:

Please make sure you have permission from the author before requesting that I record their fic.

Author's permission is required, unless it's a surprise gift for someone, in which case I won't post it publicly without the author's permission after ze receives the podfic.

Which do you prefer for the gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun: "they" or "ze"?

I much prefer "they". Sure, it's technically ungrammatical, since it's a plural pronoun, but it is an already existing gender-neutral third-person pronoun. And it's not the first time English pronouns wander between plural and singular--I mean, "you" was originally just the plural second-person pronoun, but then it took over the function of the singular as well. "Ze", on the other hand, always gives me a bit of a jolt. Also, what about the other cases of it? I mean, for "they" we already have "them", "their", etc. Would we say "the story is zeirs"? Or what about the horrible-sounding "zeself"? (ETA: I've now learned that the cases of "ze" are "hir", "hirself", etc, which does make more sense. And I can see why you might want people to use it to apply to yourself personally, if you're genderqueer. But I still prefer "they" for someone in general when the gender is irrelevant.)

According to Garner's Modern American Usage: "Though the masculine singular personal pronoun may survive awhile longer as a generic term, it will probably be ultimately displaced by they, which is coming to be used alternatively as singular or plural." Interestingly, the book also says that this development has gone furthest in British English, where it is more or less standard by now, but that many Americans resist it.

Somewhat related to this, I'm listening to a series of lectures (on my mp3-player, that is) about the history of the English language. It's so fascinating! And actually much better to listen to than to read, since a lot of it is about pronunciation and how it changes from Old to Middle to Modern English, and so the lecturer can demonstrate the sounds.

Comments

[luzula]

Well, I don't know--there are definitely made-up words that have made it into the language. But you're right, most of them don't.

In writing I work hard at removing the need for pronouns when I don't know the gender.

I do try to avoid "he" and "she" when I don't know the gender, but it seems unnecessary to avoid pronouns altogether, if you can use "they". Of course, if you're writing in a really formal context, you might want to avoid it.

[alltoseek.livejournal.com]

Made-up words that survive are usually for new objects, ideas, etc. Like television or racism. Even then they are built on old word (usually). Or brand names, like Kleenex.