A letter with regards to explaining one's use of pronouns

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

Here's another way of encapsulating my earlier point:

To use English to refer to singular humans in the gender-neutral requires either neologism or breaking grammatical rules. But why? School systems teach us English in such a way as to support some classes, ethicities and genders over others. For gender, this includes eliminating the singular "they," and designating "he" as the universal singular. Our language has already had its grammar and lexicon fucked with, but because we grew up with this, we see it as normal. We are taught that deviations are improper, or too new to use ("ze" is too weird, so people don't use it, so it's still new, so people think it's weird, repeat - but if you start using it, it starts sounding normal).

I'm not suggesting a particular pronoun, but a way of couching your choice and explanation thereof.

Comments

[baglieg.livejournal.com]

The only grammatical rule that singular they breaks is "do not use singular they".

It's been suggested that it "breaks the rules" because it does not follow the same pattern as the singular pronouns he, she and it; however, singular they follows the exact same pattern as singular you. The law of English grammar which singular they breaks was abandoned around 1700-ish AD when singular you replaced thou (singular they has also been in use about that long).

[plaidalicious.livejournal.com]

I believe the singular thou is used as an intimate form of the language, along with thee and thine, and denotes a strong emotional attachment as well.

I use the singular they with some, I have used ze, but then I have to explain it too often. That's the primary reason I don't use it outside my lovely counterculture friends.

[meantryptamine.livejournal.com]

I've complained of the lack of a non-pejorative agender pronoun for quite some time. I fall victim to acutely feeling the weirdness of "ze" as well as most people, but it certainly beats the hell out of "it". It's my observation that the phenomenon of marginalized populations altering common lexicon takes a very, very long time, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.

[sciencequeen.livejournal.com]

At least English pronouns (and a couple of adjectives) are all those affected by gender.

In latin-based languages, nouns and verbs have gender too. At what point is the language suitable to be re-defined in the given context?

I support singular use of "they" way more than "ze" because isn't the point of being transgendered is to assume the other gender, not embrace absence of gender? Granted, anyone could choose to be referred to in a genderless way by "ze" but "they" signals true ambiguity to me.

[sciencequeen.livejournal.com]

I realize that it's impossible for gender issues to not become political, but "ze" to me is more gender/feminist/counterculture and so will be regarded as such by most people not participating in that culture.

I feel that the singular use of "they" however, accomplishes exactly what is being set forth, a gender neutral pronoun. Without sparking too much debate into the "why". I think that could go further faster in the "general population"'s psyche.

[koppermoon.livejournal.com]

I'm all for the singular they, since it's not a neologism. A _lot_ of time is needed for neologisms to be accepted. But, as I was reminded by a drunken woman on the bus the other morning, Ms has become firmly ensconced in the common parlance, 40 years after being widely disseminated. The modern coinage was in 1901, as Wikipedia tells me.
Shakespeare used "it" for infants (see the Nurse in R&J babbling on about Juliet), but it has taken on an unfortunate pejorative cast over time.

[meantryptamine.livejournal.com]

But in order for a century's time to be adequate to allow for widespread acceptance of "Ms.", it had to represent a subset of people exponentially larger than select transfolk and the genderqueer population. In light of this, I'd be keen on agreeing with the singular "they", although my inner grammar Nazi is throwing a tantrum.

[mocks.livejournal.com]

I agree that 'they' seems like the one most likely to gain traction, practically speaking. I don't so much care about 'proper' grammar (I find it a bit awkward to use, but certainly far less so than any of the neologisms) but I am a bit annoyed by its ambiguity. Balancing crisp effective writing with clear pronoun use is something I find tricky already... but because I'm in the middle of all these writing projects this probably feels like a more of an issue than it really is. English contains all kinds of ambiguity and we mostly don't notice or care.

Alternative: what about reclaiming 'it'? I don't think I've really seen that bandied about much.

[mocks.livejournal.com]

Hm, some more thoughts. Not necessarily useful ones, but definitely thoughts.

Gender really can be pertinent to a lot of interactions, as can many other qualities a person can possess. If English allowed it, I would be pretty happy to use a pronoun that indicates late 20s cissexed straight-leaning bi male in a long-term committed poly relationship not actively looking for additional partners but possibly open to meeting them. These are things I think would be useful to most people I interact with to know. But I would of course object to a language where my marital status was an obligatory part of how I was addressed.

If the above seems far-fetched, consider this. Japanese doesn't really use third-person pronouns much but has an expressive range of first-person options. Fictional businessman Akihiro could use, in the course of a week, the first-person pronoun "watashi" to speak to co-workers, "boku" to speak to his mother, "watakushi" to speak to a high-status visitor from another company, "ore" when having a beer with the guys, "atashi" during the opening remarks at zer drag burlesque show, "atasha" when trash-talking one of the other girls back-stage and "ware" when delivering a eulogy at their grandfather's funeral. And a lovely quality of Japanese is that listeners would understand from those choices how to address Aki in return (Acchan, eat your breakfast/Buchou, I want that report by Wednesday/Dude, did you see the tits on that one?/You're such a good dancer, Akichan/I'll cut you, bitch!/I am plagued with sadness by your inestimable loss, Kodawara-san).

More conventionally, a teenage girl might use "watashi" or "atashi" with her parents and teachers, "ore" with her female friends, and "atashi" or "atasha" or even "mi-" with that boy from English class she likes, and each choice would carry a bevy of (possibly not always desirable or even wholly deliberate) implications for how she is identified.

German uses a third-person plural gender-neutral pronoun to refer to individuals in formal polite speech, so maybe gender neutral people in Germany always seem really respectable?

[katkent.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun

Spivak (new)
Ey laughs
I hugged em
Eir heart warmed
That is eirs
Ey loves emself

Telyn uses these, and they are elegant. In regular speech, one tends to assume ey as singular.