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- #21
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Non-standard pronouns
- Thread starter Steerpike
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TheCrystallineEntity
Istar
I use they/their to refer to genderless characters.
Here's a random fact: there is a gender neutral [and very formal/polite] Japanese pronoun: watashi. Yet on my Japanese rosetta Stone programme, watashi is tossed around as easily as atashi, boku, and ore are in anime. I found it a little strange. [Oh, and a sentence of a man introducing himself started with 'boku', which is usually used by boys or young men. I found that equally odd.]
I seem to have a skill at derailing topics.
Here's a random fact: there is a gender neutral [and very formal/polite] Japanese pronoun: watashi. Yet on my Japanese rosetta Stone programme, watashi is tossed around as easily as atashi, boku, and ore are in anime. I found it a little strange. [Oh, and a sentence of a man introducing himself started with 'boku', which is usually used by boys or young men. I found that equally odd.]
I seem to have a skill at derailing topics.
Dark Squiggle
Troubadour
I agree with you in that words will arise to fill in the now empty space in the genderless pronoun niche, but I don't agree that shoving in some random sounds will create those words. The words that you have listed are a few of those that have survived long enough to become words, a small fraction of those that are coined. Furthermore, all the words that you have listed are compounds of preexisting words, which lends them extra legitimacy, which 'cir' doesn't have. The word "watashi" TheCrystallineEntity mentioned, or an Anglicized version of it, would be a good choice.
Words are born when other words are modified, absorbed from other languages, or in rare occasions, like Thomas Edison's "Hello", created by famous figures who shove them into existence. So, if you use the word and become the next Brandon Sanderson or J. K. Rowling, you may create a real word. Otherwise, you will create a fantasy world-specific word, which is fine, but not really a word for a gender neutral person.
(Am I just being thick? I am beginning to feel I may have gone overboard and am no longer productively adding to the thread)
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- #24
I don't think they're random sounds at this point. Ve/vis/vir have been around since the 1980s, so 30+ years. Xe, etc., goes back another decade before that. Even though they are not widely used at this point, they've been in existence, and have been used in limited circumstances, for some time now. The decision to employ options that have been around for that long isn't "random," but is a deliberate decision to settle on one of a few pre-existing strategies for dealing with the problem.
Dark Squiggle
Troubadour
I have never heard them before, but that doesn't mean anything. I guess it comes down to whether or not the bulk of your readers will have heard them before or not.
TheKillerBs
Maester
Well, watashi is the default first-person pronoun in Japanese. As I understand it, boku is used by males in the same circunstances that one would use -kun. If you throw atashi and ore around in Japanese conversations, people will look at you weird. They're words used in anime that aren't used in real life. Same as kisama.
On topic: I use they/their as well, and would probably put down any book that starts throwing out non-standard pronouns. However, I might not be your target audience anyway so...
TheCrystallineEntity
Istar
Oh. Shows how much I know, then.
Queshire
Istar
Personally I find using they / their as smoother, but that's just aesthetics. Among those who are familiar with gender neutral pronouns, while I don't think there's one that as particularly won out, the general format of Ve/vis/vir is well established and it should be easy enough for readers to pick up what it means from context.
The "fake word" style arguments against it are... Utterly unconvincing to me. Especially here. Fantasy words are a cliche. Guys like Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll came up with nonsense words that are now in use all the time.
Honestly, it reminds me of when I was a little kid and adults would make "pokemans" jokes. When you're a kid Pokémon is serious business! Similarly, it might seem ridiculous, but it's still important to some people.
The "fake word" style arguments against it are... Utterly unconvincing to me. Especially here. Fantasy words are a cliche. Guys like Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll came up with nonsense words that are now in use all the time.
Honestly, it reminds me of when I was a little kid and adults would make "pokemans" jokes. When you're a kid Pokémon is serious business! Similarly, it might seem ridiculous, but it's still important to some people.
TheKillerBs
Maester
There’s a difference between coming up with a fake word for a non-existent concept and coming up with fake grammar when there is a perfectly viable standard option. But ignore me, I’m just a disgruntled (former) English teacher.
CupofJoe
Myth Weaver
I had a chance to broach this questions [sort of] with a couple of people that do not identify with the male and female genders.
One of them hated all of the "modern" constructs. The other was hoping that we could find a named vs un-named convention, where you would use a person's name or some wording that was neater than "the unknown person".
One of them hated all of the "modern" constructs. The other was hoping that we could find a named vs un-named convention, where you would use a person's name or some wording that was neater than "the unknown person
- Thread starter
- #31
This is akin to calling news reports one doesn’t like “fake news.” It simply isn’t a compelling argument.
Dark Squiggle
Troubadour
I think it is about unfamiliar, not fake. A lot of the time familiar is better, because it does not require effort for the reader to understand what is going on. is better, you can see this in the fact that many fantasy worlds are similar (elves, Dark Lord, dwarves, goblins, etc.) This is not because these things are better than any alternatives, or because the writers are unimaginative, but because people know what to expect when they hear 'elf' (Thank you Tolkien), and not when they hear 'grifnobbler'. This point is meaningless if you either want to play CS Lewis and make up your own words or feel your audience has heard the word before. As for disgruntled English teachers, my grandmother is a PhD of 19th and 20th Century French Literature and Philosophy. I can tell you from personal experience that you will never satisfy those people. They are just like the realist people, once you've spent years getting weapons, armor and combat terminology, they'll want to know about your dragon's calorie intake.
TheKillerBs
Maester
I see it more like calling a rabbit a smeerp. But like I said, people like me probably aren’t your target audience so feel free to ignore me.
DragonOfTheAerie
Vala
All i can contribute is that i've read "humans are weird" tumblr stories with genderless aliens that use xe/xir and I found it very distracting and annoying.
But maybe this just shows the limits of the English language. And maybe we have to adapt.
But maybe this just shows the limits of the English language. And maybe we have to adapt.
- Thread starter
- #35
I think I'd prefer ve/vis to xe/xir, but it may be just because I've read the former more. For all I know, the latter is more common. Neither of them bother me--as with fantasy or science fiction terminology and other elements of such stories, it's just a matter of initially recognizing what the author is doing with the words and then assimilating that usage into the brain during the reading of the work. It doesn't take much more, in my view, than understanding what the word mithril or jumpgate means in the context of a story and then proceeding to read with that understanding in place. One's brain does the relatively easy work of supplying the concept when the word appears. Although gender-neutral pronouns might be seen as having more of an impact on the structure of sentences, I think the process of applying meaning to them during reading is much the same.
- Thread starter
- #36
That argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny, either. Blish criticized calling a rabbit a smeerp because, in context, rabbits and smeerps were identical, but the word 'smeerp' was used to make the creature appear alien. In the case of beings in a story for which binary gender terminology is inapplicable, the beings are of course not identical to human beings and the new pronouns are not substitutes for traditional pronouns that are simply made to appear exotic.
This is only vaguely tangential, but this thread got me to look into gender from a grammatical point of view. Some languages have no grammatical genders, while others have several (up to 140 for Tuyuca). I found an list grouping languages by how many grammatical genders they have here: List of languages by type of grammatical genders - Wikipedia
Please note: grammatical gender is not the same as biological gender.
It also struck me that this is something that can be used for world building purposes, even if you don't add additional genders. I've done it once, but it came without me really thinking about it. In my first novel I wrote I had the characters and the narrator refer to the sun as she rather than it. I recall one beta reader commented on it, but I don't remember if it was as a complaint or if they just pointed out it was unusual to them.
Please note: grammatical gender is not the same as biological gender.
It also struck me that this is something that can be used for world building purposes, even if you don't add additional genders. I've done it once, but it came without me really thinking about it. In my first novel I wrote I had the characters and the narrator refer to the sun as she rather than it. I recall one beta reader commented on it, but I don't remember if it was as a complaint or if they just pointed out it was unusual to them.
I find the "it's an unfamiliar word, ew!" argument hard to swallow. In our series we use the word "therianthrope" ("therian" for short) to refer to our shape shifters. It's not a commonly used word, but yet it exists just as do alternative pronouns (and I would argue its use is actually more limited than theirs), and is in fact the correct word for people who take the shape of animals - much like an alternative pronoun would be correct for someone choosing to use it. So far, our readers have encountered it, learned it, and moved on with the new vocabulary in tow.
So, the question becomes, then, what are we objecting to when we object to alternative gender terms? Curiously, among our therian rabbits we have alternative terms for gender presentation. Rabbits; females, jacks; breeding males, and hutch jacks; transgender males.
So, the question becomes, then, what are we objecting to when we object to alternative gender terms? Curiously, among our therian rabbits we have alternative terms for gender presentation. Rabbits; females, jacks; breeding males, and hutch jacks; transgender males.
I use that as well, except the shortened form is terry/terries. Therian isn't used at all, because I haven't thought about it. Now that you've mentioned it, I may have some characters use it just to set them apart from everyone else. There may be some cultural values that differ between the different short forms. Terry/terries may be the more vulgar or derogatory term. An even more derogatory term is dog, but that's also used affectionately between therianthropes who are on good/familiar terms with each other.
EDIT: Yes, that's why the series is called Lost Dogs.
