Re: Gender Neutral Pronouns

From: Louis Newstrom (louisnews@comcast.net)
Date: Sat Mar 02 2002 - 19:26:40 MST


From: "Andrew Clough" <aclough@mit.edu>
> Until now I've been using (Ve / Vim / Ver / Verself) to represent people
of
> unknown gender/no gender.

I'm assuming Ve = He/She, Vim = Him/Her, Ver = His/Her, Verself =
Himself/Herself.
I have not seen this pronoun. My only objection is that by rhyming with
traditional pronouns, you get a flavor that Vim is like Him and Ver is like
Her.

> . (Sie / hir / hirs / hirself) seems to be relatively common
I have seen this, but have always had problems with it. Maybe someone can
tell me how they are supposed to be pronounced.
If they are pronounced "She" and "Her", then this is just feminist counter
propoganda, replacing masculine pronouns with feminine pronouns.
If they are pronounced "See" and "Hear" then you have the problem that
English already has multiple words with those pronunciations: C / See / Sea
and Here / Hear.

> (Zie / Zir / Zirs / Zirself) also seems to be used.
At least I can tell how to pronounce these by looking at them.



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