My only comment is that at least you only have to learn it once (or, well, thrice), not for any given conversation.
He, she, or they works well enough for most circumstances. Do we really need to broaden it beyond that?
Once pronouns become unique and personalised instead of generic, you lose the advantages of having them in the first place, and may as well refer to everyone by name every time. It’d be less confusing, especially if you’re re-using existing words as pronouns.
He, she, or they works well enough for most circumstances. Do we really need to broaden it beyond that?
I would say probably not. I expect (and hope, I suppose) that things will sort themselves out more or less that way. We live in a time of great reconsideration of gender norms, and it’s not absurd to see experimentation in such a period. I use neopronouns (nounself style excluded) as a courtesy, because I understand it brings comfort to many who use them and it’s not much trouble simply to do so, but they/them is what I hope we all eventually settle on as standard for NB gender identities.
They/them is not used exclusively to refer to neuter things, so enbies not being gender neutral is irrelevant here. ‘They’ is a useful and pre-existing catch-all.
My only comment is that at least you only have to learn it once (or, well, thrice), not for any given conversation.
He, she, or they works well enough for most circumstances. Do we really need to broaden it beyond that?
Once pronouns become unique and personalised instead of generic, you lose the advantages of having them in the first place, and may as well refer to everyone by name every time. It’d be less confusing, especially if you’re re-using existing words as pronouns.
I would say probably not. I expect (and hope, I suppose) that things will sort themselves out more or less that way. We live in a time of great reconsideration of gender norms, and it’s not absurd to see experimentation in such a period. I use neopronouns (nounself style excluded) as a courtesy, because I understand it brings comfort to many who use them and it’s not much trouble simply to do so, but they/them is what I hope we all eventually settle on as standard for NB gender identities.
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They/them is not used exclusively to refer to neuter things, so enbies not being gender neutral is irrelevant here. ‘They’ is a useful and pre-existing catch-all.
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… why?
Is that any more absurd than “reducing males to he/him” or “reducing females to she/her”?
It’s language, not a campaign medal. You don’t need a separate example for every instance.
The whole point of pronouns, I would argue, is to not need a separate set for every instance.
Otherwise you may as well just use Dan/Dan/Dan’s/Danself conjugated for each name.
Pronouns:
Are (generally) shorter than names, because there’s less need for them to be unique and they’re used more frequently.
Can be used even when you don’t know specifics about a person or object, or they don’t want to give out their name.
Everyone knows how to conjugate them, so once you know someone is a ‘they’, you can readily extrapolate to them, their, theirs.
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