I teach a course at a community college, and for the past two years, on the first day, I’ve asked everyone to share their preferred pronouns, so that I and everyone else can know how best to refer to them.
This semester I didn’t do that. To be honest, I forgot. Maybe at some level, I didn’t care to focus on it. In the end, I’ve realized that I don’t really need to use pronouns in class. For the few times when I need to refer to someone, their actual name works better than a pronoun.
As a writer, I’ve toyed with using “they” as a singular third-person pronoun, once or twice even trying out “themself.” But I generally avoid the issue altogether by using plurals so that the word “they” is clearly understood by all, and doesn’t interfere with the flow of understanding a sentence, regardless of a reader’s stand on the issue.
We don’t have a lot of choice. The English language doesn’t really do neutral pronouns. It has some catching up to do, and it may take a few generations. Plus, as my poem below suggests, why do we even think that a non-male, non-female pronoun should be thought of as “neutral”? Is the gender scale a partisan one, where someone not participating in either “side” is considered a neutral entity, a nonpartisan? By refusing a gender, are they bowing out of the issue, or do they often have even stronger opinions than the mostly unopinionated gendered folk? I find it curious that people make presumptions of neutrality, indecisiveness, or weakness about those who are considered to be “in the middle” between two sides of an issue. In fact, they are often the ones who work harder to understand the issues than those who subscribe to the ideology or position of one side or the other. On the gender issue, though, the opinion gap is even stranger: many who are gendered don’t even think about it, and those who are not, think about it practically all the time!
Linguist John McWhorter, a Columbia professor and prolific author, is currently writing a book about pronouns, though it’s mainly about their use in standard English. In one of his recent regular N.Y. Times columns about language (link is included here for NYT subscribers), he points out that although gender is addressed in many languages, “standard English has to settle for stretching limited resources, with ‘you’ referring to any number of people and ‘they’ increasingly called upon to do the same to an extent it never had to before.”
After discussing the paucity of pronouns in standard English, McWhorter points out that “nonstandard Englishes” are far more flexible. Attempts have been made over the years to introduce nongendered pronouns such as “ze” or “heesh” but without much success. Local dialects may provide better ideas. McWhorter mentions one nongendered pronoun that has been used by the younger Black community of Baltimore since around 2000. The word is “yo,” but not as in “Yo!” or as a replacement for “you” or “your.” They use it as a third-person prounoun, as in “Yo is a clown,” or even “Yo was tuckin’ in his shirt.”
For now, “they” seems to be working, sort of, but we can hope that “standard” English will step up to the plate with some better options. Not long ago, I had a conversation with my daughter in which she discussed a gender-neutral person having discussions with a group. They were talking with them, and they had very different ideas about how to proceed than they did. It occurred to me that if she had used the person’s name each time it was needed, the discussion would have been clearer, even if the person’s name had to be used multiple times within a sentence or two.
As with many cultural issues, people can get wrapped up and defensive about them, sometimes even feeling entitled to “stand up” for pronouns by chastising others if they misuse or forget them. I’m not quite sure this rudeness actually helps anyone; most people are probably quite happy to use people’s preferred pronouns when they know about them. At the end of a recent week of classes with a small group, I decided to ask one student their pronouns, and they said “She/her, thanks a lot for asking.” I never needed to use her pronoun during the week but it was nice to know. At minimum, it’s a courtesy.
For now, as I wait for everyday language to catch up to reality, if I ever have to tell about an interaction between a group and a gender-neutral person, I’ll try going without the pronouns entirely, and just use people’s names. I may sound redundant on occasion, but nobody will take it the wrong way, and I know my story will be understood!
Everyday language Must succumb To poetry They is inadequate They are not really Neutral But they claims to be Few are less neutral Than those who refuse labels
Excellent. Question: in using third person singular they, does it take the singular or plural verb form, in this usage? Either way it kinda grates-I agree, using the name is a graceful way out of the confusion.