The best gender neutral pronoun is staring us in the face
The absence of a singular gender neutral third person pronoun in the English language has defied resolution for centuries, according to Dennis Barron. If there is a silver bullet, he’s not telling us. The traditional he is fading out of use for obvious reasons, but how are the alternatives faring? Not particularly well. Substituting or alternating she with he or using combinations such as he or she are stylistically cumbersome. However, the fact that we continue to struggle on with these unwieldy solutions is a testament to our dedication to finding a solution.
The solution that seems to have gained common currency is to singularize they. This appears to have first emerged in the 14th century and has since been used in literature among the well educated. It is now widely used, especially when the antecedent’s gender is not known or is of mixed gender, such as The victim had money and jewelry taken from them. and It’s hard to move an aging mother or father from their long-term home. The use of they and its forms after singular indefinite pronouns (victim) or singular nouns with general reference to either or both sexes (an aging mother) has become common and generally acceptable. More recently, it is also gaining ground when refering to a clearly specified, known, or named person to avoid reference to sex or gender, as in My hair stylist had their car stolen. This may be the preference of the speaker or the person referred to.
But what’s the problem with it?
It is regarded as an impersonal, neuter pronoun because it usually refers to inanimate (and therefore sexless) objects. As such, it commonly causes offense when used in reference to a person.
Note, I use the word sex to refer to biological sex and gender to refer to psychological sex.
How do words change?
According to Richard Nordquist, most new words ‘are actually old words in different forms or with fresh functions’. They are almost entirely lexemes or lexical words — words that carry meaning in the real world — not grammar words that hold the language together. The lexeme gay was appropriated by homosexuals, but the history of the word suggests it was an easy transition. According to dictionary.com, in the early 20th century, it meant loose or promiscuous and was used to refer to women as much as men.
Grammar words that have changed recently include so and all, as in That is so not cool — popularized by the character Chandler in the TV series Friends. An earlier incarnation of this expression of emphasis in the 18th century went something like I am all astonishment instead of I’m so astonished!
There is no question that were it to broaden its meaning to embrace adults — not just infants and animals — it would be a milestone in the story of the English language. According to Bloor & Bloor, pronouns ‘are a closed set of items which cannot easily be added to or diminished, as witness the seeming impossibility of introducing a gender-neutral pronoun for human beings’ (Bloor, T. & Bloor, M.. 1995. The Functional Analysis of English. Arnold, London). It is used to refer to unborn infants and even after birth when the sex is unknown. Animals, too are often assigned it until corrected.
But by the 17th century, the old gender system, which marked gender on common nouns and adjectives, as well as pronouns, had disappeared, leaving only pronoun marking. At the same time, a new relative pronoun system was developing that eventually split between personal relative who[6] and impersonal relative which.[7][1]:1048 As a result some scholars consider it to belong to the impersonal gender, along with relative which and interrogative what.[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(pronoun)
The children’s author E. Nesbit consistently wrote in this manner, often of mixed groups of children: “Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage.”[11]
Singular ‘they’
The popular use of they as a singular pronoun demonstrates that a grammar word can change. In this case, a plural pronoun extending to the singular. This is no small alteration to the language. This grammatical change would seem to be a greater hurdle to the language than extending the semantic meaning of it to include animate objects. Why has this happened? It appears to me to be a trade off — we’re sacrificing grammatical integrity in order to avoid managing social offense.
Some argue, ‘After all, if “you”, which is also gender neutral, can serve both for singular and plural, why can’t “they” do the same?’ But at what cost? The singular meaning of they is established by context — not the text or word itself — so it is hardly fit for purpose. For example, We know who did it; they left finger-pints. Here the use of they is ambiguous as to the number of people involved — even if it is known that there was only one person — we lose the specificity that the English language is so well equipped for and that explains in part its success as the language of science.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1795) proposed using it in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral pronoun might be desired. (Wikipedia)
It is preferable if we wish to accurately convey that one individual was involved, or conceal that individual’s identity (with regards to their sex) or where sex is either unknown or extraneous information — We know who did it; it left finger-pints. Note that in this example the person is not present and so no direct offense can be caused, as is usually the case. Another example; Everyone who agrees should raise his or her right hand when pluralised All who agree should raise their right hands demonstrates how the loss of specificity gives the impression some people have more than one right hand! Everyone who agrees should raise its right hand is clearly what we mean, except that it sounds demeaning. Note that there are sentences where the antecedent of it can be used to refer to either the person or the subject, as in If an Australian is trained up and fills the job, it too will create jobs and there will be one less unemployed Australian. In this case, it can refer to either the Australian or the entire first clause.
They refers to both animate and inanimate objects, so why doesn’t it adopt the same function? It originates from Old English hit the neuter of he. Neuter means sexless and it has long had an inanimate quality. In order for it to be fully appropriated, it requires semantic change that is both extension (a word widens its meaning) and amelioration (a word loses an original sense of disapproval) to prevent offense occurring (Crystal, 1987 p. 330).
An example of this is the word mischievous, which has ‘lost its strong sense of “disastrous”, and now means the milder “playfully annoying”.’ (Crystal, 1987 p. 330).
Appropriating it for epicene third person pronoun use is not an original idea. However, the offense it causes seems impervious to amelioration. Or is it? As described, many uses are indirect, and could be accommodated with an explanation. More challenging is direct use especially when the person is in hearing shot.
Perhaps the most controversial use would be to refer to transexuals. The rise of offense culture among social progressives in the West would seem to create an even greater obstacle. But is there actually an opportunity in this crisis?
Gender pronoun controversy
While some genderqueer people use it as a gender-neutral pronoun,[12] it is generally considered a slur against transgender people[13] and should not be used unless requested by a specific person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(pronoun)
The debate over compelled pronoun use in Canada has heightened the issue and intensified the search for a politically correct pronoun. There is now a seemingly endless list of inventions that have been put forward; zie, sie, ye, ve, tey, e, E, ne, thon, mon, heesh, ho, hesh, et, hir, jhe, na, per, xe, po and co are some of them. None have really caught on. However,
In 2017, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code was amended to include ‘“gender identity or expression” to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination … and the list of characteristics of identifiable groups protected from hate propaganda in the Criminal Code.’
University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson objected to this as a potential infringement of free speech, warning that anyone who declined to use the preferred pronoun an individual chose may be accused of hate speech. That put him on a trajectory to super stardom.
Until studying the details of this case, I had the impression that the amendment mandated the use of an array of new epicene pronouns that individuals have invented or adopted for themselves. Not so — or so it seems. The legal advice is contradictory. ‘According to legal experts, not using preferred pronouns would not meet legal standards for hate speech.’ However, Bruce Pardy states, ‘The Ontario Human Rights Commission has stated, in the context of equivalent provisions in the Ontario Human Rights Code, that “refusing to refer to a trans person by their chosen name and a personal pronoun that matches their gender identity … will likely be discrimination when it takes place in a social area covered by the Code, including employment, housing and services like education.”’
This is a debate about where speech choice lies; with the person being spoken of versus the speaker. Most people prefer to please and respect others whenever possible. What seems likely, however, is that the combination of social tension and the increased cognitive load of multiple pronouns required of speakers may simply compound the missing pronoun issue to such an extent that people give up and use avoidance of the topic and person.
In other cases that are less fraught with social anxiety, there is some potential for uptake of it for reference to people.
