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Friday, March 14th, 2003
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9:27a - Bleah.
I hate being sick. I hate being awake this early. I must go unto my professor and explain wherefore I missed her class on Wednesday. Fortunately, though I was not sick then, yet I am now, so my story will be more convincing. Mwahaha ow. Tea.
current mood: sick
current music: random funny wav files (comment on this)
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2:21p - Nongendered pronouns
It takes major effort to get people to change the way they use language.
Language is the medium through which our thoughts are formulated. Some theorists have reasoned that the world does not exist as we perceive it until we attempt to describe it in language. The world is a very different place to someone fluent in e-prime than to an ordinary english speaker. Similarly, the world is different to those who consistently use gender-neutral 3rd-person pronouns than it is to those confined to the standard he, she, and it.
In order to qualify as a true gender-neutral pronoun, a word must not be derived from either of the existing gendered pronouns, nor may we simply use the plural they as occurs in non-standard english. (Yes, people are attempting to standardize it, but it results in unnecessary confusion: "The person whose gender I could not identify addressed the crowd. They said afterward it made them angry." Who was angry?) To be useful, a non-gendered pronoun must be easy to say, follow the patterns of the existing pronouns, and not be easily confused with other words. In addition, it is helpful and aesthetically pleasing if the new pronoun does not sound male or female on the english-accustomed ear, and if it borrows from another language, let it be one which has contributed significantly to the development of english. This helps the new word blend more easily into the existing language sounds and increases its chances of being adopted by society at large.
What's wrong with "it"? Well, some people find it rude. Many people who identify as gender-neutral or othergendered have been sexually abused or traumatized, or at least particularly resent the implication, even accidental, that they are an object. It delegitimizes a person's feelings. We will avoid it.
More after class...
current mood: didactic
current music: Mediaeval Baebes-Io IsaBella (comment on this)
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10:03p - More on Pronouns
There are several proposed non-gendered third person pronouns making the rounds, largely on the internet. To my knowledge they are not in common use in mainstream print media. One of these is Spivak, which derives from the nonstandard singular they, essentially with the "th" removed. My problem with the Spivak and Spivak variants is an aesthetic one; I find in many situations pronous which begin with vowels are difficult to pronounce. The most commonly used gender-free pronoun would seem to be the ze/hir series, which along with its related sie/hir and zie/zir commit the crime of being derived and resembling too strongly the feminine. Words that start with 'z' sounds do not flow naturally from an english speaker's tongue, and the 's' version is so obviously derived from the feminine we might as well be using feminine pronouns. There are many others in less frequent use, which makes them confusing to many people.
I have YET ANOTHER new proposal-- as if there aren't already enough pronoun groups without a following.
subject te
object ta
possessive adjective toi
possessive pronoun tois
reflexive taself
sample usage: I saw my friend Kel yesterday. Te came back from toi vacation in the Netherlands. I was so glad to see ta I gave ta a great big hug, almost crushing toi ribs. Then I gazed into those gorgeous brown eyes of tois, and asked ta what te had been doing with taself.
I have reasons for everything. ;)
The pronoun is loosely based on Greek. The benefit of having it begin with 't' is that many other words in english also begin with 't', but neither of the gendered pronouns do. It does not sound either feminine or masculine to english-speakers' ears. It is not readily confused with any other words, with the possible exception of 'toy' and 'toys' in the possessive, which should be immediately apparent from context, though I have considered 'tai' and 'tais' as perhaps more natural and less confusing. It follows the patterns set forth by the other pronouns as follows:
The other pronouns all have a long e vowel in the subject form. So does 'te'. In the object form, 'she' goes to 'her' and 'he' goes to 'him'; 'te' goes to 'ta' so as to be similarly unpredictable and to follow neither more closely than the other. Similarly, toi sounds neither like her nor his. The feminine repeats in the object and possessive adjective case, while the masculine repeats in the possessive adjective and possessive pronoun case. This nongendered pronoun does not repeat in either of these places. In english pronouns, first and second person pronouns tend to base the reflexives on the possessive, while the third person pronouns base their reflexives on the objective case. I follow this pattern.
When I have used this pronoun in everyday speech, most people simply overlooked it unless I drew attention to it. The greatest obstacle has been overcoming my self-consciousness about speaking differently from others.
What do people think about this?
current mood: nerdy
current music: Dead Can Dance-aion-Song of the Sibyl (3 comments |comment on this)
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