The Problem With English
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To put it mildly: I’m a fan of English. It has the largest vocabulary of any language. It boasts a diverse background, drawing from Romantic languages and Germanic ones, letting us speak however we feel. You can be harsh, jagged, sharp; you can use these words to jab. Or you can be tranquil, composed, assuaging. You can woo your reader. You can woo that person you’ll meet on the bus tomorrow.
I really believe that we are lucky to be speakers of the English language. A language that lets us say whatever we want, in whatever way we want to say it.
Unless you want to express one of the most simple concepts in the world.
The mention of a singular being without the assignment of a particular gender, and without coming across as a pompous buffoon.
We need a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.
Let me demonstrate the problem for you. Say I’m writing a story. Maybe it is absolutely essential to the tone of the story that there is a person in the corner of a room, frantically trying to button a coat, and realizing that one of the buttons is missing. Let’s say it’s a horror story.
I don’t want to distract my readers with too many details. I want to convey the anguish of the missing button, and move along with the story. I want the coat-buttoner to remain vague, unnamed, and ungendered. What are my options?
The button on their coat was missing.
We, as speakers of the English language, do have a great gender neutral pronoun. But it’s a plural one. High school English students sometimes realize this for the first time after submitting essays containing sentences such as this:
The reader experiences catharsis as they read about that one character’s missing coat button.
And receive nasty comments from their teachers in return.
Looks like the reader multiplied himself mid-coat-buttoning-sentence! Wish that would happen to me so I could order one of my clones to mark the rest of your thick-witted essay.
Although it is a common mistake, and it is becoming more and more acceptable, it is still a mistake. It blurs communication and distracts from the story, and I just will not stand for it. Using “they” or “their” in place of a singular gender neutral pronoun is not an option.
Wait!
You say.
We do have a singular gender neutral pronoun!
Really?!
Yes! “One” can be used in place of “they”. One can be used to stand in for a person - male or female - or even an animal if you want! You are a silly goose, Karissa.
You are right! Let’s give it a go.
The button on one’s coat was missing.
I hate one.
Is it appropriate in a formal academic essay when you need to refer to your hoity-toity reader in an appropriately singular way because you haven’t yet figured out that you can just change “the reader” to “the readers” and still use the pronoun “they”?
Yes.
But it is not usually appropriate for this kind of story. I worked hard to create and maintain a particular tone in my story. One simply does not fit the tone.
I have two options left. I could rearrange my sentence as to remove the need for a pronoun at all.
The button on the coat of the unimportant character (who will not be mentioned again in this story) was missing. Also, the robotic quacking noise was getting louder.
Or I could bite the bullet and assign my sloppy, frantic little friend a gender.
The button on his coat was missing.
There’s a problem here.
The reader will wonder “Who is he?” and perhaps assume that because this bimbo with the missing button was specified as male, he must play some important role in the story.
I know our language is already impossibly full of marvelous words. Bimbo, buffoon, and bozo, for example.
But we need a new one.
I haven't even mentioned the issue of genderqueer. What if you’re trying to write a character who does not identify with a gender at all? This is becoming a more prevalent issue in society, why not in literature? Authors all around the English speaking world will shy away from this touchy subject until a new word has been developed.
He? She? One? It? Mothballs, I’ve offended people just by thinking too long about this problem. I’m moving to Finland. [1]
I have been struggling with this “one, he, they, sentence rearrangement” issue for a while now. I really do think as speakers of the English language, or of any language, we deserve a solution.
We need a word with the same qualities and tone as “he/she” but without the gender assignment.
Because really, who cares if the person buttoning the coat is a boy or a girl? There’s a killer duck robot approaching.
1. In case you were wondering, there are many good reasons to move to Finland. Finland is a wonderful place which is host to exactly 2.5 million saunas, 98000 islands, a literacy rate of 100%, and a language which does not support gender specific pronouns.
I really believe that we are lucky to be speakers of the English language. A language that lets us say whatever we want, in whatever way we want to say it.
Unless you want to express one of the most simple concepts in the world.
The mention of a singular being without the assignment of a particular gender, and without coming across as a pompous buffoon.
We need a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.
Let me demonstrate the problem for you. Say I’m writing a story. Maybe it is absolutely essential to the tone of the story that there is a person in the corner of a room, frantically trying to button a coat, and realizing that one of the buttons is missing. Let’s say it’s a horror story.
I don’t want to distract my readers with too many details. I want to convey the anguish of the missing button, and move along with the story. I want the coat-buttoner to remain vague, unnamed, and ungendered. What are my options?
The button on their coat was missing.
We, as speakers of the English language, do have a great gender neutral pronoun. But it’s a plural one. High school English students sometimes realize this for the first time after submitting essays containing sentences such as this:
The reader experiences catharsis as they read about that one character’s missing coat button.
And receive nasty comments from their teachers in return.
Looks like the reader multiplied himself mid-coat-buttoning-sentence! Wish that would happen to me so I could order one of my clones to mark the rest of your thick-witted essay.
Although it is a common mistake, and it is becoming more and more acceptable, it is still a mistake. It blurs communication and distracts from the story, and I just will not stand for it. Using “they” or “their” in place of a singular gender neutral pronoun is not an option.
Wait!
You say.
We do have a singular gender neutral pronoun!
Really?!
Yes! “One” can be used in place of “they”. One can be used to stand in for a person - male or female - or even an animal if you want! You are a silly goose, Karissa.
You are right! Let’s give it a go.
The button on one’s coat was missing.
I hate one.
Is it appropriate in a formal academic essay when you need to refer to your hoity-toity reader in an appropriately singular way because you haven’t yet figured out that you can just change “the reader” to “the readers” and still use the pronoun “they”?
Yes.
But it is not usually appropriate for this kind of story. I worked hard to create and maintain a particular tone in my story. One simply does not fit the tone.
I have two options left. I could rearrange my sentence as to remove the need for a pronoun at all.
The button on the coat of the unimportant character (who will not be mentioned again in this story) was missing. Also, the robotic quacking noise was getting louder.
Or I could bite the bullet and assign my sloppy, frantic little friend a gender.
The button on his coat was missing.
There’s a problem here.
The reader will wonder “Who is he?” and perhaps assume that because this bimbo with the missing button was specified as male, he must play some important role in the story.
I know our language is already impossibly full of marvelous words. Bimbo, buffoon, and bozo, for example.
But we need a new one.
I haven't even mentioned the issue of genderqueer. What if you’re trying to write a character who does not identify with a gender at all? This is becoming a more prevalent issue in society, why not in literature? Authors all around the English speaking world will shy away from this touchy subject until a new word has been developed.
He? She? One? It? Mothballs, I’ve offended people just by thinking too long about this problem. I’m moving to Finland. [1]
I have been struggling with this “one, he, they, sentence rearrangement” issue for a while now. I really do think as speakers of the English language, or of any language, we deserve a solution.
We need a word with the same qualities and tone as “he/she” but without the gender assignment.
Because really, who cares if the person buttoning the coat is a boy or a girl? There’s a killer duck robot approaching.
1. In case you were wondering, there are many good reasons to move to Finland. Finland is a wonderful place which is host to exactly 2.5 million saunas, 98000 islands, a literacy rate of 100%, and a language which does not support gender specific pronouns.