English neutral pronouns: Difference between revisions
→History: Created section "neopronouns" in the "history" section. Moved content from the "neopronouns" stub article into this new section.
imported>NbwikiUploadBot m (→References: removing import tag) |
imported>Sekhet (→History: Created section "neopronouns" in the "history" section. Moved content from the "neopronouns" stub article into this new section.) |
||
| Line 19: | Line 19: | ||
Prescriptive grammarians of the late eighteenth century instead recommended using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun when one is needed, instead of "singular they."<ref name="bustillos 250">Maria Bustillos, "Our desperate, 250-year-long search for a gender neutral pronoun." January 6, 2011. [http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-desperate-250-year-long-search-for-a-gender-neutral-pronoun http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-desperate-250-year-long-search-for-a-gender-neutral-pronoun]</ref> However, "gender-neutral he" results in writings that are unclear about whether they mean only men or not, which makes problems in law.<ref>Geoffrey Pullum, "Canada Supreme Court Gets the Grammar Right." ''Language Log.'' August 18. 2004. [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001362.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001362.html]</ref> | Prescriptive grammarians of the late eighteenth century instead recommended using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun when one is needed, instead of "singular they."<ref name="bustillos 250">Maria Bustillos, "Our desperate, 250-year-long search for a gender neutral pronoun." January 6, 2011. [http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-desperate-250-year-long-search-for-a-gender-neutral-pronoun http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/our-desperate-250-year-long-search-for-a-gender-neutral-pronoun]</ref> However, "gender-neutral he" results in writings that are unclear about whether they mean only men or not, which makes problems in law.<ref>Geoffrey Pullum, "Canada Supreme Court Gets the Grammar Right." ''Language Log.'' August 18. 2004. [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001362.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001362.html]</ref> | ||
===Regional nominative pronouns=== | ===Regional nominative pronouns=== | ||
| Line 37: | Line 35: | ||
'''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]</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&context=honors (PDF)</ref> | '''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]</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&context=honors (PDF)</ref> | ||
===Neopronouns=== | |||
'''Neopronoun''' is a category for any English neutral pronouns that are independent from traditional third person English pronouns. In the strictest sense, a neopronoun is a pronoun which is not based on a noun ([[nounself pronouns]]), and is not [[English_neutral_pronouns#He|he/him]], [[English_neutral_pronouns#She|she/her]], [[English_neutral_pronouns#It|it/its]], or [[English_neutral_pronouns#They|they/them]]. <ref>http://www.xojane.com/issues/we-need-more-pronouns</ref> | |||
Seeking a solution to the problem of a lack of a gender-neutral pronoun in English that satisfies all needs, people since the mid nineteenth century have proposed many new gender-neutral singular pronouns.<ref name="aetherlumina archive history">"History." ''Gender Neutral Pronoun FAQ''. https://web.archive.org/web/20050207103316/http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/history.html</ref> For example, [[English neutral pronouns#Sie|sie]], [[English neutral pronouns#E|Spivak pronouns]], and others. None of these new words (neologisms) have become standard use or adopted into books of English grammar. However, some sets of these neologistic pronouns have seen use for real people with [[nonbinary]] gender identities, and for characters in fiction. These neologisms are the main topic explored in the list that follows in this article. | |||
==The list== | ==The list== | ||