Neutral Pronoun Poll!
As part of the new comic I’ll be having a genderqueer main character. I’ve got an idea for the pronoun I want to use, but I was interested in what other people thought!
You can find more on gender neutral pronouns on this blog here:
use schklim or schler… like in futurama
I’m just being silly
i think irl they is the most commonly used but it would be nice if on a page you explained all of these for people who dodnt know.
I’m used to people using hon/hen for gender neutral terms
Both of those sound very feminine to me?
As someone who identifies (at times) as genderqueer, I want to say that I really like “they” and really dislike other invented pronouns. I know, this may be heresy. However, I’m also studying linguistics. For reasons I won’t go into now, “they” really has a chance of being a widely used pronoun for people like us. The other ones … well, even if they phonetically COULD be English words, they just don’t work. Pronouns are too frequently used to be able to by simply reinvented (they’re part of a “closed word class”, as are other parts of speech, like prepositions). And personally, my ear cringes every time I hear an invented, neutral or agendered pronoun. That said, this is Tab’s comic, not mine, and I don’t wish to sound arrogant.
Meanwhile, I cringe every time I see ‘gender-neutral’ used where ‘non-binary’ is intended. If a gender-neutral pronoun is needed, well, we’ve already got one: ‘they’ (used when the referent’s gender is unknown). The main problem I have with using it as a non-binary pronoun is the potential confusion between the non-binary definition and the gender-neutral definition. If we’re going to persist in using gendered pronouns (and to do otherwise would require the sort of reinvention you rightly say is nigh impossible), we ought to be clear and consistent about it. I favor ‘ze’.
The English problem with “they” is it implies multiples, though. Iunno.
Hmmm… I’m leaning to singular “they” as a first runner, on the grounds of its having long been in existence. If you want something else, I’d take the less confusing of the new coinings, “ne” (it looks like the hardest one to mistake for any existing pronoun!).
(Disclaimer: I’m not a native speaker of English).
Whups! Posted this on the cover, when it should have been here:
I just answered the Neutral Pronoun Poll, and I noticed that the one I encountered first wasn’t on there. Right after I came out, I posted on Craigslist’s W4W. I know, terrible idea, but there was one response I liked well enough to go on a date with. Problem is, this person wanted to be called ‘it’. I was kind of intrigued by the genderqueer idea, but I just could not handle what I saw as the dehumanizing pronoun.
I’m wondering if ‘it’(it/those/its/itself) is just uncommon enough that it didn’t make the list, or if ‘it’ was excluded for the same reason I still can’t bring itself to use that pronoun for a person.
I can understand where you’re coming from with having difficulty referring to a person as “it,” even if they’ve explicitly stated that it’s what they prefer. A lot of people have that difficulty. But it isn’t really their call to decide how tor refer to people who have already stated their preferred pronouns. Try looking at it from the point of view of someone who prefers ‘it’:
It says that it prefers a certain set of pronouns. These are the pronouns that it likes, and that make it feel happiest and most comfortable.
But other people insist that its preferred pronouns are dehumanizing. They ignore its protests that it doesn’t feel dehumanized or objectified by its preferred pronouns, and that it really does know best what it wants for itself.
They arbitrarily pick some other pronoun to use for it. It feels like their agency as a person has been removed. It feels, somewhat ironically, dehumanized.
My favourite expressions came from the ‘Stalag 19’ anthropomorphic sci fi web comic and from Sam Delaney’s tales like ‘Nova’ and ‘Triton’. It’s similar to the 4th option.
The novel Woman on the Edge of Time uses the word ‘per’ to replace both him and her, and he and she. Taken from ‘person’ I imagine. I really liked that, but that’s the end of my experience with it.
I like ‘they’ but grammar people always complain that ‘they’ is plural and can’t be used as a singular pronoun.
I think both they and it would be valid and consistent choises for different reasons.
The Indo-European grammatical gender system is not binary, there are three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter (i.e. latin for neither). the neuter pronoun in english is IT. In English most words have slided from masculine or femiine to neuter, which is why those two are used mostly for people, but not exclusively, a ship being often feminine still. Therefore it would be natural development to use the pronoun It eclusively even for persons.
THEY, like DoctorNauk poits out, is used mostly for plural now, but so was ‘you’ earlier, ‘thou’ was the singular pronoun. So it it could be equally natural development for he/she/it to be replaced by they.
My native language, finnish, has no grammatical gender so a sentence like ‘He gave it to her’ would be something like ‘It gave it to it’. Seriously. You need more clues from the context but it would be understandable.
As an English major I have to thoroughly endorse only one of the following:
– The epicene ‘they’. Specifically, the epicene ‘they’ is exactly what is used in common conversation for any gender-unknown situation and it applies seamlessly.
-The universal-gender “he” which could cause confusion.
-The neutral “it”, which I have encountered in practice with a genderqueer person.
What do you mean by universal gender for “he”?
The universal-gender he is used in referring to gender-nonspecific cases. It groups all gender into “mankind” and is the source of “All men are created equal”, “A good customer always brings exact change with him” and “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The neuter-he is usually proper style for British English (Which I assume Tab would be using), but more recently the use of the epicene ‘they’ is more encouraged than the neuter-he.
I use the pronoun ‘one’ as in this one, that one, someone or another. The other one, the one right next to me, etc. I also like making use of words such as my name and such as this dinosaur right here. I really wish that ‘one’ was an option in this poll. They is second best.
I also really strongly feel that “they” is the preferable option, personally. It’s a bit unfulfilling in some ways, mainly that it’s kind of confusing and also just a bit cold sounding. And totally I respect peoples’ decisions to use some of the wonky third-gender pronouns, but personally I prefer to be referred to as “they”, and I feel it’s less grammatically obnoxious to use “they”. I also can’t say I’ve met a non-binary person use anything other than “they” in person. It just seems to work the best in the “real world”.
I say go with the Futurama gender neutral pronouns. No one uses them ;_;!
Genderqueer here who is often referred to as “ne”.
I use They a lot, but the “proper” form of referring to oneself who is GQ is “ne”
Tip, I don’t know if anyone use’s “y’all” in england, but as you probably know, ‘y’all’ is an expressly plural form of ‘you.’ thus if you need to eliminate confusion between singular and plural they, i would recommend trying out “they’all” or “th’all” for the plural version. It’s a new thing I’m playing with and maybe others will find it as useful as well.
I’m not going to vote in the poll as I have no business doing so, but I am curious to see what others say about it.
Late to the discussion party. But the only, erm… person I’ve ever known who referred to themselves as “they” was actually a person with multiple personalities. They used “they” to refer to their body, and gendered pronouns to refer to their individual personalities. (Hence my hesitation to use the word “person”.)
When “they” was first used in the comic, it confused me, because I wasn’t sure precisely why. Just my thoughts.