English neutral pronouns: Difference between revisions

'''Yo''' (nominative form only). In addition to an interjection and greeting, "yo" is a gender-neutral pronoun in a dialect of African-American Vernacular English spoken by middle school students in Baltimore, Maryland, the student body of which is 97% African-American. These students had spontaneously created the pronoun as early as 2004 and commonly used it. A study by Stotko and Troyer in 2007 examined this pronoun. The speakers used "yo" only for same-age peers, not adults or authorities. They thought of it as a slang word that was informal, but they also thought if it as just as acceptable as "he" or "she". "Yo" was used for people whose gender was unknown, as well as for specific people whose gender was known, often while using a pointing gesture at the person in question. The researchers collected examples of the word in use, such as "yo threw a thumbtack at me," "you acting like I said what yo said," and "she ain't really go with yo." The researchers only collected examples of "yo" used in the nominative form. That is, they found no possessive forms such as "yo's," and no reflexive forms such as "yoself." As such, "yo" pronouns might be used only in nominative form, similar to another native English gender-neutral pronoun, "[[English neutral pronouns#A|a]]." Either that, or these forms exist, and the researchers just didn't collect them.<ref>Rebecca Hersher, "'Yo' said what?" April 24, 2013. ''NPR: Code Switch''. [http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893/yo-said-what] [https://web.archive.org/web/20221206111736/http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893/yo-said-what Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref><ref>Elizabeth J. Elrod, "Give us a gender neutral pronoun, yo!: The need for and creation of a gender neutral, singular, third person, personal pronoun." ''Undergraduate Honors Theses'' paper 200. 2014. http://dc.etsu.edu/honors/200 or http://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1203&amp;context=honors (PDF)</ref>