Pronouns: Difference between revisions

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He/Him pronouns are typically, but not always, used by men, masculine-aligned individuals, or those who want to present masculinely. During the Middle English and Modern English periods a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) was considered gender neutral and said nothing about the gender or sex of the individual, however it later became more strongly associated with only men. In the 18th century, when prescriptive grammarians decided that singular "they" was no longer acceptable as a gender-neutral pronoun, they instead recommended "gender-neutral he" when referring to a generic person.

She/Her pronouns are typically, but not always, used by women, feminine-aligned individuals, or those who want to present femininely. The pronoun "she", which first appears in the mid 12th century, and seems to have been created to reduce the increasing ambiguity of the pronoun system at the time.<ref>https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/</ref> "She" is occasionally used as a generic gender neutral pronoun in place of "gender-neutral he" as a feminist statement against the bias towards seeing men as the default.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular "they" back to 1375<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'' (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.</ref>, and throughout the middle ages and renaissance it was used as a singular gender neutral pronoun, making it one of the oldest pronouns in the English language. However, in the 18th century prescriptive grammarians declared that "they" should only be used when referring to a group, and suggested using a "gender-neutral he" as an alternative.<ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=d68sHzfpWVMC</ref> Reasons given for this are: 1) Latin did not have a singular, gender neutral pronoun, and since Latin was a more prestigious language, prescriptivists thought that English should be more like Latin. 2) When plural pronouns are used certain verbs change form (ie: "he was" vs "they were"). These verbs always change when "they" is used, even when used for an individual. This was an unacceptable inconsistency according to prescriptivists.

The pronoun "one" is the formal indefinite third person pronoun. It is sometimes called a fourth person pronoun, although fourth person pronouns do not technically exist in English. It is used to refer to a hypothetical individual or to everyone in general. It is typically only used in formal writing. Occasionally, individuals use one/ones pronouns as a gender neutral pronoun.