Gender-Neutral Pronouns

[Michael Chui]

I seem to come up with all sorts of topics that I'm not sure what folder to stick them into. Anyways, my usual, "Mods please move if you think it ought to go elsewhere." I'm not picky.

I was wondering how people feel about gender-neutral pronouns (GNP). There's a great overview and survey of them at Wikipedia, here, most notably the "singular they", which is fairly common, and the more common "generic male", which I disapprove of:

Gender-neutral pronoun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Couple of perspectives I'm looking for (other than #1, questions are addressed to all readers):
1) Assuming you use GNPs, do you have preferred choice? If so, why?
2) How do you feel about actively using them in your everyday life?
3) How would you feel about hearing them?
4) Whatever other thoughts?

I've never really settled on an acceptable GNP for myself. I do have a professor who reportedly uses a generic female (If you don't know the gender, you use the female pronoun), which amuses me profoundly. I usually make it a point to either dodge pronouns altogether or switch between them. But the former method is evading the concern and the latter can get really confusing, especially if I'm talking in person: it's impossible to keep track of it.

[belugagirl]

Michael, you have really hit on a conundrum. I think about this quite often as an English teacher.

So many languages have a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun. I don't understand why English can't as well. (Of course, many of those other languages have a respect form and a familiar form, which creates added confusion that I'm glad we don't have to deal with in English.) The question is how to get one. Or, actually, how to get one BACK. In Middle English, the equivalent of "they" was acceptable as a plural or singular. Now it is considered only a plural, even though many, many people use it as a singular, both in writing, and especially in casual conversation.

My loyalties are divided on this issue. I think that, eventually, when the use of "they" becomes common enough, even in the circles of power (academia, business, media), it could become acceptable "proper" usage, but there are forces of grammatical rigor resisting this. Unfortunately, English does not have a language-regulating body like the Académie Française that decides what acceptable use is. There is no central authority to consult or petition.

So on the one hand, I would love to be a crusader for the acceptability of "they" as a singular, but as a teacher of college freshmen, I have to teach them what is accepted in college-level writing, and "they" as a singular most definitely is not.

I have done all of the tricks to avoid this problem: rephrase as plural, rephrase to avoid the problem entirely, use "he," but not everywhere, so it is not a "generic he," use "she" where it will not draw so much attention to itself that it distracts from the point. I even occasionally use "he/she" or "he or she," but as seldom as possible, because I find these awkward and annoying.

Anybody want to join me in a worldwide effort to enhance the acceptability of "they" as a singular pronoun?

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by belugagirl

Anybody want to join me in a worldwide effort to enhance the acceptability of "they" as a singular pronoun?

I could back that. I dislike the fact that it dilutes "they" as a plural pronoun, but I'm nearly willing to take that if it means I get a recognizably gender-neutral pronoun.

[The Probabilist]

What about a person, a human (being) or just one?
I've been using those.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by The Probabilist

What about a person, a human (being) or just one?
I've been using those.

Using "person", "human being", or "one" doesn't work when you're not referring to the human race in general. You may know the person is, but you don't know their gender. In these cases, you need a pronoun.

Consider this sentence: "The Probabilist wrote a post, but I don't know (pronoun)'s gender."

I can't say "I don't know person's gender," nor can I say "I don't know one's gender.

[Susie]

Or how about this one...when you receive a phonecall from an unknown person and you can't take the call...what do you say? "Tell THEM I'll call them back." I teach English, but for practical as opposed to academic situations, and I do teach students to use singular them.

[Jill]

Anybody want to join me in a worldwide effort to enhance the acceptability of "they" as a singular pronoun?

[Raises hand! ]

When I first started publishing my online newsletter in 2000, my proofreader was very much against using "they." She recommended the use of "he or she," but I always found it too awkward.

She's since come around and decided that "they" is common enough for me to use, so I do.

I say we just use it. I never knew it was a problem until my proofreader pointed it out to me!

[Holistic Star]

In writing I use 'he or she' if I'm not sure, just to make the point that it could be either. At university we used 's/he' in writing although I've not seen that in business usage.

In speech 's/he' doesn't work. When presenting I would probably use 'he or she' as it's a more formal setting. When talking with friends I think 'they' as singualar is acceptable.

Diane Steine in her books uses 'her' and 'she' as the general pronoun, and it really brings you up short. It makes me realise how unacceptable it is to use 'he' to refer to men and women however normal it seems to do that once you see the effect of using 'she' to refer to the population as a whole.

It's not just gender neutral pronouns that's the problem. It's the assumption that the norm is male. It's the equivalent of the headline 'Man kills Neighbour's Wife' when the wife was the neighbour too. I've seen a couple of posts here that assume the readers are male. e.g. 'Soy beans make you gay because they feminise you.' (which assumes you are not female to start with!)
Or posts talking about people in general then assuming that general person has a wife. (Use 'spouse' or 'partner' instead in that instance, so you are not assuming that they are a) male and b) hetrosexual).

When I mention my boss, most people assume my boss is male. When I mention the team administrator most people assume that person is female without any evidence either way.

Anyway, at least I don't speak German where the word for girl is neuter!

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

In speech 's/he' doesn't work.

Though I have considered using "sah-he" to pronounce it. No, it defeinitely doesn't work. And "he or she" is really difficult (should it be "she or he"?) when you're used to burning only one syllable on a pronoun and instead triple the weight.

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

Anyway, at least I don't speak German where the word for girl is neuter!

Grammatical gender is different from physical gender in some important respects. Doesn't make it necessarily okay, but it's better. For instance, there are languages with four genders: you'd have a hard time deriding their notion of gender there.

I'm actually not sure how many grammatical genders English is considered to have, since it's such an irregular and mixed language. (As of today, it has roots in perhaps a dozen distinct families, even though it was Germanic in the beginning.)

Gender-neutral pronouns aren't a problem, as far as I can see; they're a solution. The problem is that there isn't an agreeable solution, though the singular they/them is probably in the lead for acceptability.