AskBeehaw

2003 readers

1 users here now

An open-ended community for asking and answering various questions! Permissive of asks, AMAs, and OOTLs (out-of-the-loop) alike.

In the absence of flairs, questions requesting more thought-out answers can be marked by putting [SERIOUS] in the title.

Subcommunity of Chat

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

alyaza@beehaw.org

thrawn21@beehaw.org

UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org

What are your favourite neopronouns? (beehaw.org)

submitted 3 months ago by SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org to c/askbeehaw@beehaw.org

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi I was wondering what folk's here liked most in terms of neopronouns for first, second and third person.

If you don't know what that means:

First are things like I/me
Second are things like you and y'all
Third are things like they, she and he

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] sleepybisexual@beehaw.org 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't use them personally. Unless it/its counts, but they cool

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Personally I count it/its as neopronouns.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

While it/its is newer than he, she and they, I wouldn't consider a pronoun created in the 16th century 'new'.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Sure, however its positive or neutral usage for people is relatively new as far as I know.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Both it and they essentially come from gender neutral pre-english roots (proto-germanic and norse, respectively) and were used in these ways since their inception. Examples date back to Old English and you can find people using both to describe people (not always groups, but sometimes singular and unspecified). Adoption of the use of these pronouns in the personal sense, however, is a bit more difficult to find and likely something mostly lost to literature. Outside of a few notable figures and what pronouns they happened to use (such as the public universal friend), people were simply not important enough and having a personal journal was reserved for those in power and those who had wealth, so recorded history on a more personal level is much more difficult to track down. The idea that queer people didn't experiment with things like this hundreds of years ago seems far fetched to me - the few existing historical records we have of high profile queer folk seem to suggest that they did indeed experiment with language as a means to express identity.

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Oh, that's a fair point. thanks for pointing that out 🙂.

I really appreciate the level of detail that went into your reply. However, I have nothing much else of use to say.

[–] AbraNidoran@beehaw.org 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lois McMaster Bujold, writing science fiction in 1986 about a genetically engineered hermaphrodite used it/its for pronouns (when not using she or he)

I remember reading a goodreads answer later that she would have used they/them if it had been in common enough usage that she had encountered it.

(though in my mind '86 is relatively recent, but maybe I'm just old)

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 1 points 3 months ago

Oh, I didn't know that, thank you!