Comments on: Weekend Word Wrap: Baltimore’s gender-neutral pronoun – Yo

By: Meg

Meg — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:01:05 +0000

I need a gender-neutral pronoun in my ESL classroom! I give instructions like “He or she will give his or her paper to his or her next teammate”, which is quite wordy. Using “they” confuses my students with singular and plural.

By: PartiallyDeflected

PartiallyDeflected — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:49:12 +0000

First of all, when you’re talking about colloquial language it’s not “Baltimore” it’s “Balmer”.

“They” works perfectly well and has been used that way for ages. And a slight disagreement with Buddz – the plural of “y’all” is “all y’all”.

By: Rosalie

Rosalie — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:06:49 +0000

We’re definitely in need of a gender-neutral pronoun, for the previously mentioned reasons of awkwardness and gender binary. I agree that the ‘ze’ and ‘hir’ pronouns work well for this–I have an androgynous friend who wants people to use them in referring to hir. However, there are lots of other gender-neutral pronouns out there that some people use, and it would be good to establish one common set.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:45:34 +0000

I’m not crazy about the way those kids are using “yo”, since in most of the examples there is no real need for neutrality. If the person that the pronoun is referring to is known, the gender of that person is known, so old fashioned “he” and “she” works fine.

But I’d love a gender neutral pronoun for sentences where the person the pronoun would be used for are not known. For instance, if I’m writing up a new policy memo for my store concerning customers in general, my employees and I don’t automatically know the gender of the customers that may be involved in the situation I’m adressing. And “he/she” or “he or she” seems so be so long and formal and serious. It has a legal vibe.

“They” rolls more naturally off the tongue, but feels more plural to me. I’ve seen “one” being used to replace “you” as well as “he” and “she”. It’s definitely singular, but like “he or she” has that same way too formal outside of a legal document or research paper feel.

A casual firmly singular pronoun would be great. I think the “ze” someone mentioned would be perfect.

By: Korin

Korin — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:53:12 +0000

For those who know about anthropomorphism and other creatures of that type, there is already a gender neutral pronoun in place. The word “ze” is used to mean either a hermaphrodite or a a creature who’s sex is uncertain.

By: buddz

buddz — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:47:27 +0000

Down here in the south, we’ve always used a gender-neutral, all-purpose pronoun: y’all. It’s also non-numerical, if that’s the correct term — it can be both singular AND plural, sometimes in the same sentence.

Yo, though, might meet the need at some future time. And if “dude” can ever be de-nouned, and de-masculinated, it’d serve quite well.

By: septer

septer — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:27:23 +0000

‘it’ is perfect gender-neutral pronoun if only it didn’t make the subject sound so un-alive.

It’s a pain to keep ‘one’s’ writing looking gender-bias-free! The ’she/he’ is unnatural to type…breaks the flow plus which gender do you put first – he/she or she/he?!!!

Time for Websters of the world to expand. Necessity is here…

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:26:20 +0000

Typo in previous comment

should read SHE-sh (no extra ‘e’ after dash)

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:23:28 +0000

Shesh!

That’s my pick for gender-neutral pronoun because it contains both SHE and HE, and can be accentuated according to whether who want it referred to a man or a woman – SHE-esh or sHE-sh (although that probably takes away from the purpose of being gender-neutral!;-)).

By: T

Fri, 02 May 2008 14:04:56 +0000

To Brian above: Considering the fact that language is arbitrary and the purpose of which is to communicate, what is the purpose of excluding a word from a certain dialect (”ebonics,” as you called it) from playing a part of the evolution of our vernacular? What makes ebonics inferior to any other dialect, as long as its speakers are able to communicate with each other effectively? And why are you hesitant to allow any part of it (or even any part that “sounds like” it) to become mainstreamed?

Personally, I’m not a fan of “yo” either, but that’s pretty much because I am familiar with it as a salutation and not a pronoun. Using “yo” as a pronoun would feel as awkward to me as using “hi” or “sup” as pronouns.

There absolutely should be a gender-neutral pronoun in addition to the gendered pronoun, for the simple fact that not everyone fits the gender binary. Those people need pronouns too.