Comment by readthenotes1
Comment by readthenotes1 a day ago
"hen" is my go-to gender neutral 3rd person singular pronoun.
I realize that English speakers use "you" for both singular and plural, having retired "thee" and "thou", but the resulting ambiguity has led to the creation of a new word, "y'all", or sometimes prepending it with "all of" for clarity.
Using "they/them" in the singular will just lead us down the same path.
Why not short circuit it and just add the pronoun English speakers have needed forever?
How often is the gender of the pronouned person(s) relevant? In my experience, almost never.
Right now I am reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer for the first time and guess what, back in 1984 there are uses of “they” in a situation where gender of a hypothetical singular third person is irrelevant. It is not confusing in the slightest, compared to a completely new artificially created word.