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Pedants' corner

non-gender specific pronouns

(27 Posts)
Franbern Sun 17-Dec-17 16:45:40

One of my g.children has taught me that there are now non-gender specific pronouns that are slowly coming into usage. V instead of him or her and either Vir or Hir instead of She and He. Think these will be excellent additions to our language.

grannyticktock Fri 22-Dec-17 20:58:12

It's been tried, or at least suggested, before. Heesh and Shim, I think, were the subject and object forms, respectively.
It didn't catch on. This won't either. The use of a random letter is even less likely to appeal, especially in speech: "Who? Vee? Who's that? " It sounds like "thee" with a lisp. "Hir" sounds like "her", so that's no use either.

People enjoy using new verbs, adjectives and nouns, but new pronouns are rare, and always evolve over centuries from a related word. "Ms" (see above) is closely related to Mrs and Miss, and still isn't widely used. No one ever says it.

This will never catch on either. Trust me.