Gender neutral pronouns, because it’s not always absolutely crucial to existence to continuously refer to one’s assigned gender or genitalia configuration.
I am an editor and a writer, and when I bring up the subject of creating and popularizing gender-neutral personal pronouns, or using “they” as such, I’m almost inevitably met with bitchery, derision, and prescriptive entrenchment. If you’re one of those people who turns up their (see what I did there?) nose at “made-up” words, I’d encourage you to take a moment to peruse the essay “New Words,” in which George Orwell makes a damn compelling argument for just such a thing.
What it comes down to, oh linguistic purists, is that language is a tool for the communication of ideas. If existing language is insufficient for communicating an idea, we either repurpose obsolete terms or introduce new ones, just as we’d upgrade a machine that no longer served the needs of the time. Get over it.
“It is curious that when our knowledge, the complication of our lives and therefore (I think it must follow) our minds, develop so fast, language, the chief means of communication, should scarcely stir. For this reason I think that the idea of the deliberate invention of words is at least worth thinking over.” - George Orwell, “New Words”
(Footnote to the pronouns above - I’ve encountered “sie” as well as “zie” for the subjective form of “hir,” and the whole X set written with Z instead of X.)
(Source: alexthefab, via ragnell)
