4 ms·
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm 'he' was already genderless. 'She' was introduced to signify female,
by thret 12y ago
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm
'he' was already genderless. 'She' was introduced to signify female, and 'he' become masculine by comparison. Perhaps in introducing 'she' we should have introduced something like 'ghe' for male, then we could keep 'he' as undefined, and everyone would be happy.
- philh 12y agoThat's not quite what it says. It says that there was a time (1200 years ago, in a different language) when he existed with heo, which was female; and then heo morphed to he; and then she was introduced. It doesn't specify whether he was originally masculine or ambiguous.
- thret 12y agoYes, but it does specify that 'he' was used for both male and female at the time 'she' was introduced in Middle English.