Comments on: A Passionate Plea for a New Pronoun

By: drew white

drew white — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:12:14 +0000

I think the argument that using he alone embodies patriarchy is true. But they is no solution; they is inescapably ungrammatical. He/she and S/he are distracting, and he-or-she unweildy.

Some have adopted the solution of alternating he and she as pronouns of unspecified gender. I think this is the most sensible solution. Why shouldn't he and she politely take turns standing in for the non-gendered generic hypothetical or universal person?

By: Z

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:35:47 +0000

For what it is worth I read a book many years ago that used “hish” as a gender neutral pronoun.

By: John

John — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:43:21 +0000

Stick with “he”. I do. It’s proper English. It does not exclude half your user base, because like it or not “he” is either masculine or gender neutral, as determined by the antecedent. Stating “he or she” or, worse, “s/he”, is, as you said, a terrible blight, an unnecessary bow to PC that should be stricken from usage at once. But I know not everyone agrees with this sentiment. To each his or her own.

By: Emma

Emma — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:24:44 +0000

Did LeGuin use something else in “Winter’s King” and Left Hand of Darkness, or just he? I think we should start using “one” more; all these made-up pronouns are annoying.

By: Rob Menke

Rob Menke — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:01:14 +0000

"They" but used for a singular third-person was proper until the early 1900s, when "he" suddenly fell into vogue. (In German, "they" is used both as a plural and a formal version of "you," so it has some precedent.)

"Xe" would make us all sound vaguely French. I think I speak for most in thinking that would be a bad idea.

I'm also in favor of adopting "yall" as the official second-person plural of written English. We definitely need to differentiate our pronouns in a context-free way.

By: lapsed.cannibal

lapsed.cannibal — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:49:28 +0000

Ooo, I like xe. Sounds cool, and it gives the letter “x” something to do for a change.

By: Simone Manganelli

Simone Manganelli — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:24:04 +0000

I believe some people are actively pushing “xe” as a gender-neutral pronoun in English, but it’s obviously not getting much traction since I don’t think I know anybody who actually uses it in normal conversation.

A good fallback, as you noted, is the plural “they” which can sound weird. Equally as weird but probably not nearly as widely-used is using “it” to refer to a person. I started doing that with my friend in normal conversation — it sounded funny.