Pronouns: Difference between revisions

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[[File:He him pronouns.png|thumb|220x220px|He/Him Pronouns Flag by Geekycorn on DeviantArt]]

He/Him pronouns are typically, but not always, used by men, masculine-aligned people, or people who want to present masculinely. During the Middle English and Modern English periods a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) was considered gender neutral and said nothing about the gender or sex of the individual, however it later became more strongly associated with only men. In the eighteenth century, when prescriptive grammarians decided that singular they was no longer acceptable as a gender-neutral pronoun, they instead recommended "gender-neutral he" when referring to a generic person.

[[File:She Her Pronouns.png|thumb|220x220px|She/Her Pronouns Flag by Geekycorn on DeviantArt]]

She/Her pronouns are typically, but not always, used by women, feminine-aligned people, or people who want to present femininely. The pronoun she, which first appears in the mid twelfth century, and seems to have been created to reduce the increasing ambiguity of the pronoun system at the time.<ref>https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/</ref> She is occasionally used as a generic gender neutral pronoun in place of "gender-neutral he" as a feminist statement against the bias towards seeing men as the default.

[[File:They them pronoun.png|thumb|220x220px|They/Them Pronouns Flag by Geekycorn on DeviantArt]]

The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular "they" back to 1375<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'' (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.</ref>, and throughout the middle ages and renaissance it was used as a singular gender neutral pronoun, making it one of the oldest pronouns in the English language. However, in the 18th century prescriptive grammarians declared that "they" should only be used when referring to multiple people, and suggested using a "gender-neutral he" as an alternative.<ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=d68sHzfpWVMC</ref> Reasons given for this are: 1) Latin did not have a singular, gender neutral pronoun, and since Latin was a more prestigious language, prescriptivists thought that English should be more like Latin. 2) When plural pronouns are used certain verbs change form (ie: "he was" vs "they were"). These verbs always change when 'they' is used, even when used for a single person. This was an unacceptable inconsistency according to prescriptivists.

The idea that singular they is grammatically incorrect continues to the modern day, although it is not strictly followed in normal speech. Most people will use "they" when referring to an unknown person without realizing it. In the modern day singular they is often used by [[Non-Binary|non-binary]] people as a gender neutral pronoun. They/Them pronouns are typically, but not always, used by people who want to present in a gender neutral way or otherwise don't want to present masculinity or femininely.

In English reflective pronouns either end with -self when singular and -selves when plural. Before the campaign against singular they the word "themself" was used were referring to a single person, while "themselves" was used for multiple people. Since the singular form was deemed to be "incorrect" the word themself is often considered to not be a word, with the correct version being themselves. Currently, themself or themselves may be used when using singular they.

The pronoun "it" is traditionally used for inanimate objects, and occasionally for animals or babies. Some people use it/its pronouns as a gender neutral pronoun, however this "it" should only be used for a person if they say it's okay to do so, as to do otherwise is dehumanizing.