English neutral pronouns: Difference between revisions
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===Co=== | ===Co=== | ||
'''co, co, co's (cos), co's, coself'''. Mary Orovan created these in 1970, derived from the Indo-European ''*ko'', as an inclusive alternative to "he or she."<ref name="d baron epicene">Dennis Baron, "The Epicene Pronouns: A chronology of the word that failed." [http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm]</ref><ref name="aetherlumina listing 1">https://web.archive.org/web/20070310125817/http://aetherlumina.com/gnp/references.html</ref> In the pages about inclusive pronouns in the book ''Words and Women'', authors Miller and Swift talk about this pronoun's origins, history, and contemporary usage: | '''co, co, co's (cos), co's, coself'''. Mary Orovan created these in 1970, derived from the Indo-European ''*ko'', as an inclusive alternative to "he or she."<ref name="d baron epicene">Dennis Baron, "The Epicene Pronouns: A chronology of the word that failed." [http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm] {{dead link}}</ref><ref name="aetherlumina listing 1">https://web.archive.org/web/20070310125817/http://aetherlumina.com/gnp/references.html</ref> In the pages about inclusive pronouns in the book ''Words and Women'', authors Miller and Swift talk about this pronoun's origins, history, and contemporary usage: | ||
<blockquote>"'Humanizing English,' an eight-page pamphlet first published in 1970, included [Mary] Orovan's proposed common gender pronoun ''co,'' which is now being used in everyday speech and writing by members of several alternative-life-style communities. Twin Oaks Community, a group of some sixty adults and children living in Louisa, Virginia, adopted Orovan's nonsexist grammatical form in 1972. The pronoun has since spread to other communities in Virginia and Missouri, is used in a book on radical therapy published in 1973 by Harper & Row, and it routinely replaces 'he or she' or 'he/she' in the magazine ''Communities,''' which is addressed to cooperative-living groups across the country. Orovan derived ''co'' from the Indo-European root form ''ko,'' the common ancestor of both the masculine and feminine English pronouns. Co, with its suggestion of 'together,' is not used to replace either the masculine or feminine pronoun when applied to a specific individual, but only as an alternative to the unisex generic ''he.'' Twin Oaks' newsletter ''Leaves,'' for example, comments in an article on communal work undertaken by members, 'Vacations are indeed a burden for the remaining members, but everyone takes cos turn at carrying the burden.'"<ref>Casey Miller and Kate Swift, ''Words and Women.'' Pages 129-130.</ref></blockquote> | <blockquote>"'Humanizing English,' an eight-page pamphlet first published in 1970, included [Mary] Orovan's proposed common gender pronoun ''co,'' which is now being used in everyday speech and writing by members of several alternative-life-style communities. Twin Oaks Community, a group of some sixty adults and children living in Louisa, Virginia, adopted Orovan's nonsexist grammatical form in 1972. The pronoun has since spread to other communities in Virginia and Missouri, is used in a book on radical therapy published in 1973 by Harper & Row, and it routinely replaces 'he or she' or 'he/she' in the magazine ''Communities,''' which is addressed to cooperative-living groups across the country. Orovan derived ''co'' from the Indo-European root form ''ko,'' the common ancestor of both the masculine and feminine English pronouns. Co, with its suggestion of 'together,' is not used to replace either the masculine or feminine pronoun when applied to a specific individual, but only as an alternative to the unisex generic ''he.'' Twin Oaks' newsletter ''Leaves,'' for example, comments in an article on communal work undertaken by members, 'Vacations are indeed a burden for the remaining members, but everyone takes cos turn at carrying the burden.'"<ref>Casey Miller and Kate Swift, ''Words and Women.'' Pages 129-130.</ref></blockquote> | ||