Gender Neutral Pronouns
I've been having a conversation with a friend about what GNPs I use, and why I prefer those that I do. I figured I'd note it here, as well. Some of this is snipped and edited from an IM convo, so apologies if it doesn't exactly flow.
Most of the conversation is clearer with reference to this table of GNP neologisms
There've been a bunch of gender-neutral pronouns competing out there for a while. Some on that list I'd never heard of, but here's the pocket guide to why I use the set I do, which is closest to what they show as zie/zir/zirs, although I spell 'zie' as 'ze', and I'm more likely to change pronunciation of 'zir', rather than use 'zirs'. I pronounce zir differently when I mean him than when I mean his. Something like "zeer" for his/hers, and "zur" for her/him.
Of those that I recognized or found particularly unusual, here's why I don't use them (all of these complaints are IMO, of course):
The e/em one is almost impossible to make sense of in day-to-day conversation -- I think it's the lack of an initial consonant sound. And sie/hir, which is also one of the more common ones, is hard to differentiate from she/her. And the het/thon/etc ones are too far from common pronoun sounds for people to absorb them at all easily into conversation, I think.
I do use a singular 'they' when I'm talking to people who aren't familiar with GNPs, and where it's not really appropriate to stop and have a conversation about the topic, but I find it unwieldy and frustrating. I often find myself wishing they were in more common use, though -- phone support often involves not knowing the gender of the person being discussed (especially if it isn't the caller themselves, although more voices are arguably androgynous than most people would suspect). Rather than doing grammatical sommersaults in order to frame a question in a way that allows the least painful use of a singular they, it'd be nice to just use a real GNP.
In my personal life, I use GNPs pretty commonly. My social life is pretty chock-full of folks who think about gender a lot, and even those who don't are usually pretty primed to at least recognize them and cope ok. I'd be lying if I said they sound perfectly natural to me yet, and they felt weird as hell at first (I think I was first introduced to them about 15 years ago, but have only been using them regularly for 5-8 years or so), but its definitely become more natural to use them over time.
Most of the conversation is clearer with reference to this table of GNP neologisms
There've been a bunch of gender-neutral pronouns competing out there for a while. Some on that list I'd never heard of, but here's the pocket guide to why I use the set I do, which is closest to what they show as zie/zir/zirs, although I spell 'zie' as 'ze', and I'm more likely to change pronunciation of 'zir', rather than use 'zirs'. I pronounce zir differently when I mean him than when I mean his. Something like "zeer" for his/hers, and "zur" for her/him.
Of those that I recognized or found particularly unusual, here's why I don't use them (all of these complaints are IMO, of course):
The e/em one is almost impossible to make sense of in day-to-day conversation -- I think it's the lack of an initial consonant sound. And sie/hir, which is also one of the more common ones, is hard to differentiate from she/her. And the het/thon/etc ones are too far from common pronoun sounds for people to absorb them at all easily into conversation, I think.
I do use a singular 'they' when I'm talking to people who aren't familiar with GNPs, and where it's not really appropriate to stop and have a conversation about the topic, but I find it unwieldy and frustrating. I often find myself wishing they were in more common use, though -- phone support often involves not knowing the gender of the person being discussed (especially if it isn't the caller themselves, although more voices are arguably androgynous than most people would suspect). Rather than doing grammatical sommersaults in order to frame a question in a way that allows the least painful use of a singular they, it'd be nice to just use a real GNP.
In my personal life, I use GNPs pretty commonly. My social life is pretty chock-full of folks who think about gender a lot, and even those who don't are usually pretty primed to at least recognize them and cope ok. I'd be lying if I said they sound perfectly natural to me yet, and they felt weird as hell at first (I think I was first introduced to them about 15 years ago, but have only been using them regularly for 5-8 years or so), but its definitely become more natural to use them over time.