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Date: Wed, 12 Jul 95 01:45:26 -0700

From: Peter Langston <psl>


To: Fun_People
Subject: Third Person Animate Singular, Gender-Neutral
Forwarded-by: "Daniel R. Tenenbaum" <dante@halcyon.com>
From: kedzie@rand.org (Chris Kedzie)
THIRD PERSON ANIMATE SINGULAR, GENDER-NEUTRAL
Christopher R. Kedzie
RAND P-7896, April 1995
(Please feel free to share widely while preserving textual
content and
appropriate credit to the author.

Comments welcome:

kedzie@rand.org)
A policy analyst addresses his or her colleague for grammatical
advice
regarding a gender-neutral pronoun for the circumstances in
which the human
subject at issue is either hypothetical, unknown or
intentionally
disguised.

She replies, that it seems the current linguistic

trend is to
substitute "she" in cases where one in the past would likely
have used a
generic "he."
roles and

This is to avoid reinforcing stereotypical gender

traditional power structures, she explains.

The policy analyst

is left
unsatisfied.

He or she is troubled that grammatical reverse

discrimination
can be just as noxious, imprecise and connotation-laden.
However, s/he
admits that cumbersome contrivances, combinations and
alternations only
further obfuscate his/her attempts to communicate clearly.

When

the policy
analyst tries to use nouns to avoid the pronoun dilemma, the
policy
analyst's writing becomes repetitious and dull.

It is

frustrating for them


(nondescript in gender, incorrect in number) because their
intention is to
use language to express their ideas correctly, succinctly and
without
insult.

Language, like the other tools employed by the policy

analyst
(such as economic principles, statistical techniques, behavioral
science
theories, etc.) can be pernicious when it overstates, confuses
or
inaccurately reports the extent of the available information.
Thus, what
the policy analyst needs - as does the English language - is a
gender-neutral third person animate singular pronoun.
As a metaphor for what would be right in any policy debate, a

good place to
start this discussion would be in the search for the common
ground.

As

usual, in spite of some very obvious differences, there is a


substantive
region of agreement between "he" and "she" - in the letters "h"
and "e."
Obviously a solution which combines "h" and "e" is a nonstarter, since it
is identically the word which has perpetrated the historical
bias.

A lower

common denominator is the letter "e."

A simple e, however,

dangling in a
sentence appears powerless and vulnerable.

It has a meek

presence no more
commanding than that of a certain common article.
Capitalization, though,
could give an E backbone and teeth.

"E" would be unequivocally

elevated to
the stature of the first person singular pronoun, "I."
Following the much
criticized "Me Generation," an E Generation would be a good
thing - to
encode the "Golden Rule" into English grammar - to treat others
(at least
in writing) as we treat ourselves.

Symbolically, the new

pronoun would
suggest that everyone deserves the respect we traditionally have
reserved
for ourselves, including and especially those people whose

demographic
character is not known to us.

The capital letter "E" can even

venerate God
without ascribing gender.

It is said that E can be found in

each one of
us.
In speaking, "E" slides of the tongue since it sounds familiar
to the
pronouns we are comfortable using.

In writing, "E" looks like a

variable,
such as X or Y, which we are accustomed to substituting for
unknowns.

For

ease of grammatical use, this third person singular animate


pronoun "E",
like the second person pronoun (both singular and plural),
"you," would not
decline.

E treats you with respect.

You treat E with respect.

The
potentially confusing contracted form with the verb of being and
the
possessive form would follow the model of the third person
inanimate
pronoun: it's and its, respectively.

E's going to have Es day

under the
sun.
One potential risk of a discussion such as this parallels that
of many
current policy debates.

Tangential deliberations about words

may divert
attention from real social problem-solving to vocabulary window
dressing.
Too often, if one doesn't know what to do about an issue, for
instance,
access for the handicapped population, E may take moral refuge
in the claim
that E is using the "right" term, such as disabled, physically
challenged,
differently-abled, or whatever is the most current "pc" vogue.
Similar
semantic distractions occur in the debates about race,
nationality, class,
profession, etc.

However, a gender-blind pronoun debate differs

from the
other linguistic inventions in three salient ways.
First, instead of emphasizing the differences of our identities
and
potentially exacerbating the differences of our perceptions, the
essence of
"E" is equality.

Each of us is sometimes E to someone else.

The new
pronoun celebrates the distinctions between genders by
identifying those
instances in which the differences are not relevant.

Currently,

the
absence of a generic third person singular pronoun contributes
to
divisiveness while simultaneously blurring distinction between

the genders.
Either pronoun can be, and is, used to refer to a person of
either gender,
whereas "E" could also stand for "either."

Use of the new

pronoun when we
really mean "either" would enable the old pronouns to retain
their precise
meanings.

The word "he" would mean "he" unequivocally and "she"

would mean
"she" free of misinterpretation, with E as a recognized option.
Second,

"E" is an additive complement rather than a destructive

substitute
on the menu of usable words.

The new pronoun provides an

additional word
choice to be served when appropriate without shortening the list
of today's
alternatives.

The options for singular pronouns would be "he,"

"she,"
"E," and "it," whichever would impart the most complete and
accurate
information.

No vocabulary choice, nor their chooser, need be

vilified for
being insensitive to gender issues or un-pc.
Third, while subtle, the suggested change goes to the
philosophic heart of
the language.

Many of the more ostentatious changes are merely

superficial
letter shuffling.

We English speakers are fortunate that our language offers such


a simple
fix in the direction toward gender neutrality.

Adjectives in

Romance
languages betray the gender of the modified noun, even for
sexless objects
such as table and chair.

In other languages such as Hebrew and

Russian,
the gender of the subject is reflected in the verb.

And.

incidentally,
Hebrew does not use capitalization.

Capitalizing the first

person singular
seems a rather peculiar audacity of the English language.

It

was as if we
thought, as individuals, we were more important than everyone
else.

Even

the first person plural "we" starts with a small letter.

Does

this imply
that if I include you in my group, "we" together are less
significant than
"I" was alone?

Relatively few languages capitalize i.

However,

in other
languages, other pronouns are capitalized.

It is common, for

example in
German,

to capitalize the formal You.

Again, it is an issue of

respect.
Also, in Russian, there is a precedence for a grammatical
distinction
between animate and inanimate forms.

With serendipity and symmetry, in English, the second person


pronoun, "U"
could also easily follow the same grammatical pattern proposed
here for the
third person pronoun.

I believe that U deserve as much respect

as E does.
However, this aesthetic alteration, as yet, lacks a compelling
justification such as overcoming explicit gender biases of the
currently
available third person animate singular pronoun options.

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