pronouns
The thing above was in the official footer of an email I received yesterday from someone at a British University. You will note that the word ‘pronouns’ is a link. Like goes here.
From the article:
The table below provides examples of gender pronouns from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual Resource Center at UC Davis
I decided to spare you the effort (I’m nice like that) and look them all up for you.
Co/cos/coself. Gender neutral. I couldn’t find the origin. Same for en/ens/enself. While ey/em/eir appear to be one of the Spivak pronouns. Hit the link if you care.
He and she are for filthy cis degenerates and they is plural and if you use it singular I will REE unto the hills.
Xie/hir/hirself and ze/zir/zirself also generic and without origin, listed as among of the most common. Which probably means they aren’t special enough any more. Yo/yo/yoself is a made up gender-neutral pronoun dreamed up by students in Baltimore or this New Age religion.
There are, of course, dozens of others. As many of the related articles point out, people have been trying to come up with gender-neutral pronouns for English since at least the 19th C. And as I’d like to point out, they all died out, didn’t they? Because they sound stoopit.
It was fun explaining this to my boss.
December 11, 2018 — 5:15 pm
Comments: 14