Pronouns (No Attacks Please!)

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Months ago, I started a thread on non-gendered pronouns. I expected the topic to be contentious, but I underestimated. Now, having learned nothing from the experience, I’m going to suggest an innovation which all of you may find foolish, regardless of your opinion on the topic of pronouns.

It appears that they/them is now widely used for nongendered singular, and that earlier proposals for coining a new nongendered singular in English have been escorted to the dustbin of history. So, is there a way to reduce the singular/plural confusion in they/them usage?

I may try the following in a story I’m working on now. This approach addresses only part of the confusion, because these would be spoken the same way (essentially as homophones), but written differently. The singular ‘they’ would be spelled ‘thay,’ singular ‘them’ would be ‘themm,’ and singular ‘their’ would be ‘therr.’ Yes, the latter could add to the homophone confusion that can already exist among ‘their,’ ‘there,’ and ‘they’re.’

This usage would, of course, depend on people adopting new coinage, which doomed earlier attempts to de-gender English pronouns. If I actually use these neologisms in a story posted on Lit, I would definitely warn the readers right at the beginning and explain what the new words are. I may also wake up tomorrow and decide that writing pronouns with these spellings is a bonehead idea.

This is a little like the relationship between Hindi and Urdu. The former is written in Devanagari, the latter is written in Arabic, yet the spoken languages are similar enough that speech in Urdu can be understood by a Hindi-using listener, and vice versa.

I have no control over the content of replies in this thread, but I would appreciate it if people addressed only this specific suggestion, and not the larger topic of the acceptability of singular they/them. There, I’ve written that. This gives me deniability on whatever follows.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Is this a science-fiction piece (in which case bend the language however you want) or an genuine attempt to innovate the language?

I'm not sure there's much point in having homophones rather than separate words. Presumably your characters can just nominate their own preferred pronouns?

 

[RejectReality]

Frankly, those spellings just look ugly on the page to me. Utterly unappealing. They read like typos.

If any version of this is actually going to reach wider acceptance, I think it's going to be the substitute/add an X thing. That's at least been pushed into wider circulation, and more people have at least some familiarity with it

 

[ElectricBlue]

So, is there a way to reduce the singular/plural confusion in they/them usage?

I would have thought context should be enough.

I agree with RR, your proposed constructions look like typos - which would, if repeated, become annoying very quickly, and that's usually enough for me to back out of a story.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Given that 'you' has been singular and plural for a few hundred years, with the polite form becoming the norm and the familiar 'thou' now extinct outside a few dialects and religious usage assumed to be the opposite of familiar, I think you're into a heading to nowhere with this one.

Consider how you deal already with singular/plural confusion with 'you'.

Like others, I tend to nope out of stories which create new words or spellings unless there's a clear purpose and it's done very well. Ursula le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness is the only example I can think of - anyone who's not read it, do (parts are hugely erotic!), but for reference in the meantime it's a book where I cried at the end because I knew I'd never write anything so good in my entire life.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Not to pile on too much, but I'm also agreeing with EB and RR about the proposed neologism.

Especially "thay". I think you'll mostly get complaints that you need to proofread better.

As somewhat of an aside, I think it's a losing proposition to try to invent a new pronoun. We're very early in the era of openly acknowledging the limitations of English's gendered pronouns, and I think it's likely that over time some sort of consensus word will emerge. The Gen Zers may wind up inventing something new and imposing on all us olds. But for now, a lot of folk have settled on they/them because those words already work pretty well. As EB notes, context clues can clear of a lot of the confusion.

 

[Bramblethorn]

This usage would, of course, depend on people adopting new coinage, which doomed earlier attempts to de-gender English pronouns.

That is indeed the tricky part. English is constantly changing, but "designed" changes rarely seem to stick.

(Back around the 1980s, there was a movement to shift to phonetic spellings in English: "hed" for "head" and so on. There's a lot to be said for it - who could argue with making the language simpler and more logical - and it sank like a stone. I know a writer who was very keen on it at the time, and I have some of his early books where he uses those phonetic spellings, but he's long since gone back to more conventional styles.)

There's a trade-off between expressive power (having words to express every little nuance) and compactness (not having to learn too many words). My "aunt" could be my father's sister, father's sibling's wife, mother's sister, or mother's sibling's wife, and some languages do distinguish, but English seems to be content to call them all "aunt"; similarly, we lack the formal registers that languages like Japanese have. I suspect for the moment singular "they" falls near the sweet spot between those two considerations.

There's more of an argument for it in sci-fi, where it might seem implausible that people in the far future talk about gender in exactly the same way as 20th-century English. One option there is to flesh out how people think about gender in that setting, which can be a lot of work. The other one I've seen work well, though it's a bit specialised, is the Murderbot approach: the series has a bunch of characters with neopronouns, implying that future society is very different to ours, but the POV character is supremely uninterested in the finer points of human society so that side of things never gets fleshed out in detail.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Like others, I tend to nope out of stories which create new words or spellings unless there's a clear purpose and it's done very well. Ursula le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness is the only example I can think of -

A Clockwork Orange

 

[Voboy]

Frankly, those spellings just look ugly on the page to me. Utterly unappealing. They read like typos.

This.

I'd go in a different direction. If I saw those terms on my screen, I'd nope out before the end of the first paragraph. The cognitive efficiency just isn't there.

I agree with your concerns, but I also hope EB is correct: context ought to be enough, one hopes.

 

[firmbutgentle]

I had really wanted new pronouns instead of singular they/them but it wasn’t up to me nor was I one of the people directly affected. Language evolves and we have to as well.

Honestly if I’m going to die on a language corruption issue it’ll be over “disinterested” vs “uninterested,” or “disorientate” or “disambiguate” — or ghastly business-babble about “change agents” and “optimization” and “reframes.”

More practically as many others have already said, context is key. For years we had the singular-they problem in many areas — sentences like “Every attendee must check their phone at the door” which would get edited to insert “his or her” instead but that’s awkward (and unnecessarily binary). Simply changing the entire sentence to be plural fixes that (“All attendees…”).

At the end of the day (haha) we’re all wrong in someone’s eyes. Singular they dates back to the 1300s according to the OED and singular “you” was also considered wrong at one time.

 

[Defluer]

When all of this started years and years ago I hoped that a new word(s) would emerge. And not the rude combinations that people tossed around in my childhood. In text form I think I am okay with They/Them but in verbal conversation... It's confusing as fuck for my old brain. I'm completely okay with people being of whatever gender and using whatever pronouns, I am a person who thinks that everyone should be happy and free to do what makes them happy and free, as long as that doesn't impinge on others happy and free. But I've had conversations where "They" met a singular person and I just couldn't keep up, my stupid old brain kept wanting to roll back and ask what group of people "they" meant. Only to realize it was a one they. Then I lost half the conversation. I think in the business world it could mean a lot of extra clarifying questions, or people using names a lot more than pronouns.

"Julie, Carrie, and Sam started the quarterly report."
"It's due by the end of week, isn't it?"
"He said he would have it done by Thursday."

"Julie, Carrie, and Sam started the quarterly report."
"It's due by the end of week, isn't it?"
"They said they would have it done by Thursday."
"Aren't Julie and Carrie going going to the Conference for the rest of the week?"
"Yes."
"Somebody else helping Sam then?"
"Just Sam."
"Oh!"

"Julie, Carrie, and Sam started the quarterly report."
"It's due by the end of week, isn't it?"
"Sam said Sam would have it done by Thursday."

 

[Winter_Fare]

A Clockwork Orange

From memory, I think clockwork orange brought in a lot of russian/generic-slavic words as slang.

 

[firmbutgentle]

Like others, I tend to nope out of stories which create new words or spellings unless there's a clear purpose and it's done very well. Ursula le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness is the only example I can think of - anyone who's not read it, do (parts are hugely erotic!), but for reference in the meantime it's a book where I cried at the end because I knew I'd never write anything so good in my entire life.

Leguin.

I always loved Gene Wolfe‘s approach in the Book of the New Sun where what looked like elaborate invented words were actually obscure or antiquated English words.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

From memory, I think clockwork orange brought in a lot of russian/generic-slavic words as slang.

Yes, most of the nadsat words (literally, 'teen') are just Russian words or parts of, like droog (friend) and veck (short for chelovek, man), and playing around with words like rhyming slang does. It's all made clear from context, which is something some authors making up words forget to do.

Possibly because I'm used to London rhyming slang and permanent wordplay and an undercurrent of jokes, I had no problem reading Clockwork Orange and was surprised when people did (compared to say 1984).

It doesn't have any novel pronouns, though. Another excellent book, recommended as long as you don't have one of those editions with the last chapter missing, which loses the whole point of the book.

 

[AlexBailey]

I’m not so into any of the new pronouns but it may just be unfamiliarity. I know many people who go by they/them and it does occasionally need more specificity but it usually plays out in context.

In writing it can be difficult to keep the flow going when describing a tryst between several queer lovers, but the same is true when describing homosexual encounters.

He stroked his cock…
She toyed with her nipple…
They stroked them to orgasm…

(How many were going to Saint Ives?)

‘They’ takes a bit more clarification but it seems less jarring than inventing new words, though that may change if something becomes more common and familiar.

My kids have had friends and lovers who identify in a variety of ways and they all seem to keep up without much trouble. I fuck it up all the time, accidentally reverting to gender assumptions based on how someone presents. It’s much easier to remember ‘they’ when they look androgynous.

I know a few folks like myself who don’t care what pronouns someone else uses for me. I’m fluid and can just roll with it, I feel it’s up to me to present how I want and let people use what they feel inspired to use.

I get called ‘they’ a lot and I like it. ‘He/him’ doesn’t phase me but getting called ‘she/her’ turns me on. I’ve never heard anyone refer to me as anything like zir, zhe, or anything like that, it’s entirely unfamiliar.

I doubt I would back out of a story if I came across new terms and spellings but it would take some getting used to.

 

[SimonDoom]

Not an attack, but I think "they" works perfectly well. Whether or not it's singular or plural is likely to be understood in context, so there's no real need for different spellings.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Wow, civil discourse! So far. Thank you all. The dislike of my neologisms is informative, especially the part about a reader seeing them as typos. I'll probably chicken out of trying to use them.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Wow, civil discourse! So far. Thank you all. The dislike of my neologisms is informative, especially the part about a reader seeing them as typos. I'll probably chicken out of trying to use them.

Probably because we instantly see an "incorrect" spelling and know that it's "wrong". It jars the reader out of the text's flow, I think.

As Bramble notes, different rules apply with stories set in the distant future or in the long ago, but generally there's more world building going on to ease you through any changes. But in a story set in 2022, one doesn't expect too much extraneous information.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

The singular 'they' predates the word 'girl' as a gendered term.

The phrase "Someone lost their keys." Wouldn't raise questions about how many people there are. Replace that 'someone' with a name and the reader still knows how many people there are. The debate around the singular 'they' has very little to do with reading comprehension. Even the most vehement gender traditionalists likely wouldn’t notice a character being referred to as they/them unless someone pointed it out or asked them to refer to another person with they/them pronouns.

To put it in perspective, the most common complaint about they/them as a singular third person pronoun is that the person complaining has to put in a little effort to restructure their sentences. So if all the effort is on you the writer, I doubt most readers will care.

 

[TheRedChamber]

The singular 'they' predates the word 'girl' as a gendered term.

The phrase "Someone lost their keys." Wouldn't raise questions about how many people there are. Replace that 'someone' with a name and the reader still knows how many people there are. The debate around the singular 'they' has very little to do with reading comprehension. Even the most vehement gender traditionalists likely wouldn’t notice a character being referred to as they/them unless someone pointed it out or asked them to refer to another person with they/them pronouns.

To put it in perspective, the most common complaint about they/them as a singular third person pronoun is that the person complaining has to put in a little effort to restructure their sentences. So if all the effort is on you the writer, I doubt most readers will care.

I don't think this is true. Your example for 'someone' works only because 'someone' is itself an ungendered noun. I wouldn't describe myself as a gender traditionalist, but I'm old enough that saying 'Leslie lost their keys' would still give me pause for a second - household keys are often a shared item between members of a household and (if I wasn't explicitly thinking of the 'new' pronoun use) I'd be wondering who the other person was. A couple of years ago, I remember being thoroughly confused by a news story. It went on over several long paragraphs but the basic gist of it was.

1) Jane flew to New York to visit her friend Sophie.
2) A week later they flew back to Los Angeles.
3) That evening they were victim to an attempted sexual assault.
4) They flew back to Sophie for comfort and told her the story.

In the context of this thread its easy to see that Jane is using 'they' as a pronoun, but I ended up reading hundreds of words and getting utterly confused as I assumed there were two people involved in 2&3 instead of one - a major failure of reading comprehension. As AlexBailey said above this is fairly common when writing about two people of the same (binary) gender, and can just be a case of bad writing, but in those circumstances at least old folks are aware that there is potentially for confusion.

And if we know anything about gendered pronouns, its that people do care - deeply and at length.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

Replace keys with wallet or phone and it still doesn't sound incorrect.

"Robin lost their wallet" isn't going to sound wrong to most people.

 

[SimonDoom]

"Robin lost their wallet" isn't going to sound wrong to most people.

I don't agree with this at all. If you know Robin is a woman, it sounds completely wrong. Most editors, proofreaders, grammar teachers, and experienced writers would tell you that's wrong. "Robin lost her wallet" is the correct version. I can't speak for people around your age, although I think my kids, who are around your age, would think that's wrong.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

If Robin's gender has yet to be described, the reader just has to take they/them as the correct pronouns.

 

[TheRedChamber]

If Robin's gender has yet to be described, the reader just has to take they/them as the correct pronouns.

No because the author knows Robin's gender.

Edit: Sorry I think maybe you were saying something different from what I initially thought. 'Robin lost their wallet' looks strange to older folks, but is consistent with the new rules. Assuming it was the first sentence in a story you could assume a 'they' pronoun.

 

[Voboy]

Replace keys with wallet or phone and it still doesn't sound incorrect.

"Robin lost their wallet" isn't going to sound wrong to most people.

It would certainly be something I'd notice. And yes, it would sound unusual if I was looking at Robin and could see him or her.

Of course, me noticing it doesn't necessarily mean I'd think it's "wrong." I recognize we're living in a brave new world, and I'd have no wish to be disrespectful to Robin. But in a story? I'd probably back out and find a piece that requires less effort from me as a reader.

I think we shouldn't minimize the comprehension difficulty of "they/their" in a written piece. The post by @TheRedChamber above speaks to me: I'd have to read paragraphs two or three times to make sure I had the relationships correct. Which is annoying for me if I'm not reading something I'm prepared to give that amount of time and energy to.

This is precisely the problem the OP's seeking to solve, but the suggested solution (as noted above) wouldn't work for me either, as a reader. It's not that I'm a stick-in-the-mud who cannot accept and appreciate non-gendered people; it's just that I'd rather not use my erotica time parsing novel grammar and usage.