4 ms·
Meh, I like 'hen'[0] a lot, wouldn't mind seeing a concerted effort to introduce it in English as well. I doubt it would go over well in the states, however. [
by sgrove 12y ago
Meh, I like 'hen'[0] a lot, wouldn't mind seeing a concerted effort to introduce it in English as well. I doubt it would go over well in the states, however.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_%28pronoun%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_%28pronoun%29
- evincarofautumn 12y agoUnfortunately, pronouns are a closed class[1] in English; the possibility of getting people to adopt a new one is vanishingly unlikely. Fortunately, we already have “they”, which has been used as a gender-neutral pronoun in the singular for at least half a millennium. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech#Open_and_closed_classes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech#Open_and_closed...
- sgrove 12y agoInteresting, hadn't heard about closed/open classes in speech. I agree that "they" serves the purpose well, but it's nice to see an explicit, consciousness-raising fix (though it's the ultimate bikeshed politically, everyone feels they're qualified to comment - even me!)