Many words about short words
Jul. 31st, 2002 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beetigerAlthough I'm aware that there are quite a few wonderful and underused words already available in the English language, I'm generally a fan of neologisms, if they help us express something we were having trouble expressing otherwise. The lack of epicene, third person singular pronouns, for use when the gender of the person is unknown or irrelevant, is one of those gaps that has plagued the English language for some time now.
Some of those neologisms, are in fact, rather old. Dialectal use of the epicene pronoun “ou” is documented in the 18th century. The neologism “thon”, a contraction of “that one” dates to the nineteenth. (This makes me think of tuna.) The use of “they” as a singular pronoun, and of grammarians complaining about it, goes back about 6 centuries. This is almost acceptable in casual speech, I suppose, but even though Jane Austen used it, I can't bear to write it.
1970's feminism brought an explosion of new gender-neutral pronouns. In the nineties, the Spivak pronoun set (e, em, eir, eirs, emself) gained some popularity. There's the unpronounceable pronoun set “splat” (*e,h*,h*,h*s,h*self), and the sarcastic contraction of “he or she or it”: h'or'sh'it. The standard third-person nongendered pronoun in English, of course, is 'it'. I've heard this used both in fiction and in life by/for people of neuter gender, sometimes. Most people, though, find this to have an upsetting implication of being nonsentient or inanimate.
What is relatively new, I think, is the use of these words by some intersexed, genderqueer, trans, androgynous, third-gendered, neuter, and otherwise radical people who don't want to be referred to as male or female, for themselves. As awareness of people who don't fit into the two-gender model has grown, the gender-neutral pronouns are starting to have new implications. Soon, perhaps, they won't be gender-neutral pronouns at all, but pronouns for other-gendered people, and we'll be back where we started again.
When we developed World Tree, we needed third-gender pronouns for our hermaphroditic species and for our three-gendered species. We started with “sie, hir, hir, hirs, hirself”, probably the most popular gender-neutral/ third-gender pronoun set on the internet, and in the furry community. We discovered during playtest that these work well in text but are very awkward in speech, since “hir” and “her” overlap in many people's dialects. We did some research into the history and popularity of different alternative pronouns, ran a lot of them over our tongues, and ended up choosing the “zie, zir, zir, zirs, zirself “set. I'm still happy with the choice.
Interestingly, the place where people tend to trip up is in trying to use gender-variant relationship words. We've had to invent more new words for our third-gender Herethroy colovers: cofille for a child, comari for a spouse. We've used “parent” and “child” for the offspring of our all-hermaphrodite species, perfectly good gender-neutral words, but in play people almost always revert to “son/daughter” or “mother/father”, and stereotype the characters accordingly, once they've done so. I really don't know what variant-gendered people are doing about this in their real lives.
Why am I talking about this? Last night, while having another bout of sleeplessness, I browsed a bunch of LJ communities for/about people who do not identify as male or female. Attention users of alternative pronouns: if you care enough about language and its implications to use new pronouns, use them correctly, please. If you are going to muck with the language, act like you know what you are doing, or you make us all look very stupid, and I will want to wring your little indeterminately-gendered necks.. Zir's *is* not an appropriate form, any more than his's or her's is. “Zir” is a pronoun, not a noun. “Zir” is the word that corresponds to him/her (I saw zir.) and to his/her (Zie ate zir lunch.). “Zirs” corresponds to his/hers (That parakeet is zirs.) You do not have the excuse that you are confusing the possessive with a contraction, as you might with “its” vs. “it's”; the right form in that case would be “zie's” (Zie's coming at six.)Thank you.
By the way, I nearly always use female pronouns for myself. But if you see me dressed for the part, feel free to call me “sir”.
Some of those neologisms, are in fact, rather old. Dialectal use of the epicene pronoun “ou” is documented in the 18th century. The neologism “thon”, a contraction of “that one” dates to the nineteenth. (This makes me think of tuna.) The use of “they” as a singular pronoun, and of grammarians complaining about it, goes back about 6 centuries. This is almost acceptable in casual speech, I suppose, but even though Jane Austen used it, I can't bear to write it.
1970's feminism brought an explosion of new gender-neutral pronouns. In the nineties, the Spivak pronoun set (e, em, eir, eirs, emself) gained some popularity. There's the unpronounceable pronoun set “splat” (*e,h*,h*,h*s,h*self), and the sarcastic contraction of “he or she or it”: h'or'sh'it. The standard third-person nongendered pronoun in English, of course, is 'it'. I've heard this used both in fiction and in life by/for people of neuter gender, sometimes. Most people, though, find this to have an upsetting implication of being nonsentient or inanimate.
What is relatively new, I think, is the use of these words by some intersexed, genderqueer, trans, androgynous, third-gendered, neuter, and otherwise radical people who don't want to be referred to as male or female, for themselves. As awareness of people who don't fit into the two-gender model has grown, the gender-neutral pronouns are starting to have new implications. Soon, perhaps, they won't be gender-neutral pronouns at all, but pronouns for other-gendered people, and we'll be back where we started again.
When we developed World Tree, we needed third-gender pronouns for our hermaphroditic species and for our three-gendered species. We started with “sie, hir, hir, hirs, hirself”, probably the most popular gender-neutral/ third-gender pronoun set on the internet, and in the furry community. We discovered during playtest that these work well in text but are very awkward in speech, since “hir” and “her” overlap in many people's dialects. We did some research into the history and popularity of different alternative pronouns, ran a lot of them over our tongues, and ended up choosing the “zie, zir, zir, zirs, zirself “set. I'm still happy with the choice.
Interestingly, the place where people tend to trip up is in trying to use gender-variant relationship words. We've had to invent more new words for our third-gender Herethroy colovers: cofille for a child, comari for a spouse. We've used “parent” and “child” for the offspring of our all-hermaphrodite species, perfectly good gender-neutral words, but in play people almost always revert to “son/daughter” or “mother/father”, and stereotype the characters accordingly, once they've done so. I really don't know what variant-gendered people are doing about this in their real lives.
Why am I talking about this? Last night, while having another bout of sleeplessness, I browsed a bunch of LJ communities for/about people who do not identify as male or female. Attention users of alternative pronouns: if you care enough about language and its implications to use new pronouns, use them correctly, please. If you are going to muck with the language, act like you know what you are doing, or you make us all look very stupid, and I will want to wring your little indeterminately-gendered necks.. Zir's *is* not an appropriate form, any more than his's or her's is. “Zir” is a pronoun, not a noun. “Zir” is the word that corresponds to him/her (I saw zir.) and to his/her (Zie ate zir lunch.). “Zirs” corresponds to his/hers (That parakeet is zirs.) You do not have the excuse that you are confusing the possessive with a contraction, as you might with “its” vs. “it's”; the right form in that case would be “zie's” (Zie's coming at six.)Thank you.
By the way, I nearly always use female pronouns for myself. But if you see me dressed for the part, feel free to call me “sir”.
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Epicine pronouns...
I've used 'sie' and 'hir' as epicene pronouns in speech. I pronounce 'sie' like the Spanish 'Si' (or the English word 'see'), and 'hir' as a third homonym to 'here' and 'hear'. (Of course, if the gender-neutral Blu were to give a speech, I would tell people to hear hir here.)
Horshit!
Date: 2002-07-31 04:23 pm (UTC)2) I dislike it when people "sie" me on Furrymuck (and worse in RL, for the totally clueless). I'm not another gender because I'm a woman with a penis; I'm female. Gender, in our culture, is fairly dichotomous, with the exception of people who make a strong attempt to be gender-queer. There's a critical threshold of cues, that if you pass them, you're considered female--otherwise you're considered male. I think it's silly that female hermaphs call themselves "sie", because with their pants on, they're as much female as anyone else. I don't know why that damned thing is so important. I suppose that as a non-operative transsexual, my perspective is unique.
3) I like "zir" for its lingual uniqueness (good word choice), but the lack of distinction between zir as "third-gender" or gender-queer as it often implies, and zir as "indefinite" is frustrating. There should really be two, shouldn't there?
4) In AnTherian culture (Primal), pronouns aren't sentient-specific or gender-specific. They're created on demand and usually are based on the first or last letter in the object's name. Floki noticed recently that Primal lacks some gender-neutral identifiers, however; references to neuter gender are incomplete. I haven't had time to check up on this because I'm so far behind on my studies...still haven't translated even the K'morn Sray. I suppose I should get to work on it since I'm out of a job. Nothing better to do!
Trickster
Re: Horshit!
Date: 2002-07-31 07:34 pm (UTC)We agree on this. But who is going to decide on the new neutral set, out of the dozens available?
Re: Ich bin ein Transsexual
Date: 2002-07-31 07:40 pm (UTC)Re: Ich bin ein Transsexual
Date: 2002-07-31 04:29 pm (UTC)Trickster
Re: Ich bin ein Transsexual
Date: 2002-07-31 05:08 pm (UTC)(Forgive me for not having an umlaut-enhanced keyboard!)
Das maedchen ist mein Freund. Es will mit mir gehen.
[The maiden is my friend. It will go with me.]
Re: Ich bin ein Transsexual
Date: 2002-07-31 05:21 pm (UTC)There's a gender for everything, which is not arguably better...I think maiden is "es" because youth are seen as being less gender-defined...I'd rather get gender out of language entirely.
It's frustrating to not be able to refer to a coffee table without first knowing whether coffee tables are neuter or not. ^o.O^
Trickster
German derivations
Date: 2002-07-31 07:37 pm (UTC)Oh! One more.
Date: 2002-07-31 04:28 pm (UTC)Trickster
Primal Parents
Date: 2002-07-31 07:41 pm (UTC)Re: Primal Parents
Date: 2002-07-31 08:30 pm (UTC)Trickster
Pronouns... y'know, nouns that get paid.
Date: 2002-07-31 05:37 pm (UTC)"Interestingly, the place where people tend to trip up is in trying to use gender-variant relationship words."
World Tree linguistics aside, there's been quite a bit of development in gender-neutral words for relationships right here on Earth. Witness the explosion in popularity of "significant other", "(domestic) partner", "lover", etc. I know a number of straight people who use terms like this for their special someone, and are sometimes taken as gay as people assume that if they were "really" straight, they'd simply say "husband", "wife", "boyfriend" or "girlfriend".
Gender-neutral relationship words are a great way for people (of any sexuality) to express their affection for someone without necessarily using words that might have unwanted misogynistic connotations.
Not to mention terms created within the poly community: "primary", "secondary", etc. No gender in any of those...
As far as words used by gender-variant parents, I can't say I've heard of any particular cases... but I find it interesting the names some same-sex couples use. Unfortunately, I'm blanking on actual examples at the moment, but I'm thinking of a setup where one parent (male, in this case) would be "Dad" and the other would be "Daddy". (OK, that's a poor example... anyone help me out here?)
Re: Pronouns... y'know, nouns that get paid.
Date: 2002-07-31 07:54 pm (UTC)I like seeing them used by people as self-descriptors, as I enjoy both wordplay and genderplay, but I'm never quite sure what they mean (or imply)in any specific case, so I'm not sure how well they work to communicate anything in particular. Perhaps I'm just underinformed. I don't like seeing them used about people who haven't agreed to them, or who would prefer more standard words to describe themselves (see Trickster's unhappiness with being "sie'd", above.).
Gender-neutral relationship words are a great way for people (of any sexuality) to express their affection for someone without necessarily using words that might have unwanted misogynistic connotations.
Indeed. I still don't see a lot of people using gender-neutral words for blood relations, though. (A gender-neutral word for aunt/uncle, for example.)
the names some same-sex couples use
I've heard "Mommy" and "Eema"(Hebrew word) used by lesbian couples.
Re: Pronouns... y'know, nouns that get paid.
Date: 2002-07-31 08:38 pm (UTC)The main problem with gender-based pronoun references is obvious in gay erotica. :) Gender-based references keep things straight among mixed-sex couples, which is the most common bonding unit. It's the easiest way to use only two pronoun flavors to convey meaning, so it has at least some utility.
I've heard the use of "Mom" and "Nan/na", or "Dad" and "Pop/pa" before, for referring to same-gender parents.
Trickster
Ummm...
Date: 2002-07-31 07:25 pm (UTC)Re: Ummm...
Date: 2002-07-31 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-01 06:15 am (UTC)About a year or two ago I coined a half-serious new pronoun for those whose gender changes frequently: qe, qer, qers. (Q for "quantum gender"). It's generally pronounced as "ke, ker, kers" and that's close enough for jazz.
Mostly this pronoun has been deployed in Taps-like settings, but sometimes Postvixen and I assign it to people in RL whose gender wave function we aren't able to collapse by observation. :) However, this pronoun won't be of much real-world use until we're living in some John Varley-esque future where we can all change our genders whenever we damn well please (and that future can't get here soon enough for me).
no subject
Date: 2002-08-01 08:06 am (UTC)