Ramblings

When our language is less precise, it is less useful. Here are three gaps in modern English, where a new word – or at least wider use of an existing word – would improve clarity. Get working on it.

You/thou

Today you and yours are used for the second person in both the singular and the plural in English, but it wasn’t always so. The translators of the King James Bible tried to maintain the distinction found in Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek between singular and plural second-person pronouns, so they used thou, thee, thy and thine for singular, and ye, you, your and yours for plural. British people of a certain age grew up reciting the King James Version text of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”.

Shakespeare’s use of thou and you was closer to modern French and German, with thou suggesting intimacy in the singular (like the French tu or the German du), and you to show respect or when addressing more than one person (like vous or Sie). At some point in the 17th century it seems that you started to be used for the singular. Then thou was dropped and we were left with you for singular and plural, formal and familiar. Does this matter?

I think so, it’s unnecessarily vague. The need for a pronoun to directly refer to a group of people is not trivial; this is a basic element of language. Suppose you want to address one member of a group (not knowing their name): they might all then stare at you, wondering whether you are addressing one or all.

French, of course, is an etiquette minefield for non-native speakers. There is an excellent summary of their rules for addressing the second person singular here. Here is a flavour:

	Positive	Negative
Tu	Love, intimacy, camaraderie, equality	Disrespect, contempt
Vous	Respect, professionalism, formality, politeness, deference	Distance, coldness, dislike, snobbery

Plenty of opportunities for embarrass there.

Germans have managed to add an extra layer of complexity to the problem. Besides du for informal singular and Sie for formal singular and plural, they also have ihr to worry about for informal plural. Don’t worry, even Germans suffer angst over this – married women and men often call their mother- or father-in-law Sie for years after joining the family, while being called du in return.

Mercifully, English no longer confronts us with such complexities, and we have no need to bring them back. But we are left with you/your which fails to distinguish between singular and plural. Local dialects have recognised this problem, and found workarounds: y’all, youse, you guys, you’uns…But these potential solutions are mocked rather than adopted: the southern US y’all in particular is often treated as evidence of southern backwardness. Youse as a plural is heard mostly in Ireland, Scotland and parts of the US which have historically had high levels of Irish immigration, like Boston.

It’s hard to imagine any of these becoming more widespread and helping our language become more precise. You guys, for example, often wilfully misgenders – surely you people or you folks would be better?

Perhaps we could retain you for the singular and look to improve on y’all, youse etc for the plural. Or use you as the plural and try to find something less archaic than thou for the singular?

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Children

Consider an 80-year old woman who talks about her two daughters, or her two sons. She hasn’t mentioned their age, but we might guess that they were in their forties or fifties. We certainly don’t picture infants. But what if she has a daughter and a son, and refers to them collectively? She could say progeny or offspring, but that would clinical. She would, of course, say children, even if the son and daughter were both over fifty – although we usually understand children to be pre-adolescents, or in law, below the age of majority.

Your son is always your son, and your daughter is always your daughter. But you would think that your child stops being your child. The phrase adult child has some currency, but sounds like an oxymoron, and seems disparaging of the subject’s maturity. Could someone invent a gender-free and colloquial word to use instead of children which doesn’t imply youth?

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They/Ze/hir/thon

Despite the ominous pronouncement at the recent inauguration, the voices of people who do not identify as female or male will continue to be heard. She and he won’t cut it, and it is inanimate. Non-binary people have adopted the pronoun they. Of course they is usually a plural pronoun. But not always. It has long been used when the gender of a person is irrelevant or unknown: e.g. who didn’t finish their homework? What someone never had, they won’t miss. Who’s left their umbrella behind?

But there is scope for confusion. If you say “Are they coming to the party tonight?” you could be referring just to one non-binary person or to that person accompanied by a partner. If you meant just one person it would be clear if you asked “is they coming to dinner” but I can’t see that catching on. Of course this can be clarified with a little further enquiry, if you recognise the ambiguity. But misunderstandings will happen when people don’t think to ask.

There have been attempts to establish a non-gendered singular personal pronoun, and the word thon (short for that one) hovered on the edge of English for some years in the 20th century, and for a while appeared in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as “A proposed genderless pronoun of the third person”.

Over the years many other words have been proposed to fill this gap, including hes, hiser, hem, ons, e, heer, he’er, hesh, se, heesh, herim, co, tey, per, na, en, herm, em, hir, and shey. None caught on. At the time, they were likely suggested to be used in cases where the gender was simply unknown, rather than in any non-binary sense. But increased trans and non-binary awareness and identification in recent years has added fresh impetus to the quest. New pronouns – neopronouns – have been coined for gender neutral use: for example:

• xe or ze (pronounced zee) in place of she/he
• xir or zir (pronounced zeer) in place of her/his (possessive)
• xem or zem (pronounced zem) in place of her/him (accusative)

Time will tell if any of these acquire wide and lasting use. Perhaps at present there are too many options for any to prevail. In the meantime, be thoughtful and respectful. Good luck out there.