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Gender-neutral pronoun for "he/she" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 1 of 74 13 November 2009 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Several years ago I was convinced that English needed a gender-neutral replacement for the perennially-awkward usage of "he/she" and "his/her". Possibilities would be "hem" and "hen". For example: "Hem must check in with the nurse to arrange hen vaccination." Initially that looks and sounds a bit foolish, but less awkward than "He/she must check in with the nurse to arrange his/her vaccination."
Has English ever tried to have such gender-neutral pronouns? Do other languages have them? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6775 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 74 13 November 2009 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Doesn't it already have one - "one"? For example:
"One must check in with the nurse to arrange one's vaccination." Edited by Russianbear on 13 November 2009 at 5:34pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 3 of 74 13 November 2009 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Why is it more awkward to write he/she or one or you or everyone or something normal, than using words that sound like farm animals or parts of skirts? It must be about PC! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 74 13 November 2009 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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"One" is considered archaic -- no-one uses it any more.
Modern convention is to use "they/them/their" for non-gender-specific. However, this leads to odd exceptions to the pattern. We don't like to say, for example: *The police officer should wear their uniform at all times while on duty because that seems inconsistent. In general, we only like to use "they" in this way when there's no specific noun phrase mentioned, but there's this fuzzy line where sometimes the two can be far enough apart that it's acceptable. Instead, we always try to use true plural forms when talking in general terms: Police officers should wear their uniforms at all times while on duty. If you remember to use plural for the general case, there's no problem and there's no need for new pronouns. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 74 13 November 2009 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Off the top of my head, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Mongolian, and Turkish have gender neutral pronouns for "he, she".
Estonian: ta (tema) = "he, she"; see = "it" Finnish: hän = "he, she"; se = "it" Hungarian: ő = "he, she" (also "it") Mongolian: тэр = "he, she" (this is actually related to a demonstrative pronoun) Turkish: o = "he, she" (also "it") As far as I know with the first three languages, possession is also indicated in a way which doesn't give a hint of the gender of the possessor (unless we know the name of the person involved) "his/her name is... " tema nimi on... (Estonian) hänen nimensä on... (Finnish - -nsa/-nsä is the possessive suffix for 3rd person) a neve... (Hungarian - -(j)a/-(j)e is the possessive suffix for 3rd person singular) I usually work around the potential awkwardness of "he/she", "him/her" by using "one" as suggested by Russianbear or turning the subject into the plural as suggested by Cainntear (e.g. "All patients / visitors must check in with the nurse to arrange their vaccinations") Even then, using "he/she" or "him/her" doesn't bother me. The PC-aspect of this in English does bother me somewhat since in all of my years studying Indo-European languages which have separate pronouns for "he" and "she" (e.g. French, German, Polish, Romanian etc.), I never came across anyone who complained about the supposed tie to "sexism" in the language or the respective speech communities (to boot those I-E languages that I've just mentioned also have grammatical gender). I don't see the reason to make a mountain out of a molehill. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5811 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 6 of 74 13 November 2009 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Colloquial spoken English has two already replacements for the old-fashioned sounding "one." You can use "you" the way I just did, as a gender neutral pronoun that doesn't actually just apply to you, but to any individual. When someone isn't making a statement of possibility, they usually use "they," as I just did. In formal settings, neither of these usages are correct, and most educated English-speakers know that in formal writing one should use "one."
Edited by Woodpecker on 13 November 2009 at 6:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 7 of 74 13 November 2009 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes. That works in this case, but "one" sounds a bit formal and is not very common in colloquial English. It wouldn't work here for example: "The owner must take care of his/her car." Rewriting is often an option: "Owners must take care of their cars." I don't recall other languages using the xx/yyy construction but probably many now do in this politically-correct world. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 74 13 November 2009 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Politically Correct variant (particularly in academia) is now to use "she" and "her" all the time:
"The coal miner said she was meeting her sister the bricklayer" It can get really irritating to read papers where people have tried too hard in this way. The gender neutral words in English are "he" and "him". They are elliptic for "he or she" and "him or her" respectively. Just as "man" was long accepted as meaning "man or woman" - and only lost fashion quite recently. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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