EthicalDative

In respect of gender, Arabic nouns are divisible into three classes; (a) those which are only masculine [muḏakkar-un]; (b) those which are only feminine [mu’annaṯ-un]; (c) those which are both masc. and fem., or, as it is usually phrased, of the common gender… None of the Semitic languages has what we call the neuter gender.

(Wright’s Grammar of the Arabic Language, p. 177)

Common gender embraces all gender. Neuter gender spurns all gender. For the third-person singular pronoun that’s applied to humans and some mammals, English has long used he for both masculine and common gender, she for feminine gender. The pronoun it is neuter, referencing what’s inanimate. (Unlike Arabic and many other languages, non-life has no English gender.)

Here is longstanding usage:

(01) Oisín is a writer who uses metaphors in his prose. (His is masculine.)
(02) Siobhan is a writer who uses metaphors in her prose. (Her is feminine.)
(03) A writer who uses metaphors in his prose can be challenging to read. (His is common, could be an Oisín or a Siobhan.)

Many modern speakers resist using common he as follows:

(04) A writer who uses metaphors in his or her prose can be challenging to read.

The they workaround has gained much ground as well:

(05) Oisín is a writer who uses metaphors in their prose. (See the contributor profiles in Poetry for instances of this cutting edge.)
(06) Siobhan is a writer who uses metaphors in their prose.
(07) A writer who uses metaphors in their prose can be challenging to read.

It bears mention that they is plural in number as well as common in gender. Applying they to a he or a she equates mathematically to 1 + 0 >= 2.

Why have speakers passed over singular-neuter it in favor of plural-common they for non-gendered reference to a single person? It would look like this:

(08) Oisín is a writer who uses metaphors in its prose.
(09) Siobhan is a writer who uses metaphors in its prose.
(10) A writer who uses metaphors in its prose can be challenging to read.

The answer hides in plain sight and will reveal itself in this space.

Still small voice.
(c) 2022 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved.

Let’s work together, good citizens: Go ahead and write they instead of he or she if you must, but keep the -s ending on the verb. It will result in phrases such as they wants. People will want to amend it to they want, but stick to your guns. They’ll get used to it, and there’s a good reason. It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish to jettison grammatical number on top of grammatical gender owing to a mere transient dissonance. Number has no sex. Keep it. Persons can be binary-evasive and still remain singular. Saving the -s trues the circle and will dispel ambiguity on occasion.

That’s it. Read no further unless you want proof.

***

Consider this narrative:

Saoirse and Niamh have creative writing degrees. Saoirse earned hers from Indiana, Niamh hers from Cornell. Oisín told Niamh he wanted Saoirse to edit his book.

Purging gender from the narrative, except for the names, we replace hers, he and his with they-forms.

… Saoirse earned theirs from Indiana, Niamh theirs from Cornell. — Context here is sufficient to bind theirs to Saoirse in one case and to Niamh in the other. People don’t earn someone else’s degree, do they?

… Oisín told Niamh they wants Saoirse to edit their book. — There it is: they wants. The -s binds they to Oisín on an Occam’s razor footing.

We’re stuck with ambiguity elsewhere, worse luck. Whose is the book to be edited? Oisín’s? One co-authored by Niamh and Saoirse? One in manuscript by Siobhan, whom we don’t even know and is unmentioned in the narrative? The gender-weighted original is succinctly clear. Its gender-scrubbed version must be encumbered with elaboration of some sort to be airtight. Airtight speech works better than leaky speech, especially in space.

Strop the tongue.
(c) 2022 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

Let’s work together, good citizens: Go ahead and write they instead of he or she if you must, but keep the -s ending on the verb. It will result in phrases such as they wants. People will want to amend it to they want, but stick to your guns. They’ll get used to it, and there’s a good reason. It’s penny-wise and pound-foolish to jettison grammatical number on top of grammatical gender owing to a mere transient dissonance. Number has no sex. Keep it. Persons can be binary-evasive and still remain singular. Saving the -s trues the circle and will dispel ambiguity on occasion.

That’s it. Read no further unless you want proof.

***

Consider this narrative:

Saoirse and Niamh have creative writing degrees. Saoirse earned hers from Indiana, Niamh hers from Cornell. Oisín told Niamh he wanted Saoirse to edit his book.

Purging gender from the narrative, except for the names, we replace hers, he and his with they-forms.

… Saoirse earned theirs from Indiana, Niamh theirs from Cornell. — Context here is sufficient to bind theirs to Saoirse in one case and to Niamh in the other. People don’t earn someone else’s degree, do they?

… Oisín told Niamh they wants Saoirse to edit their book. — There it is: they wants. The -s binds they to Oisín on an Occam’s razor footing.

We’re stuck with ambiguity elsewhere, worse luck. Whose is the book to be edited? Oisín’s? One co-authored by Niamh and Saoirse? One in manuscript by Siobhan, whom we don’t even know and is unmentioned in the narrative? The gender-weighted original is succinctly clear. Its gender-scrubbed version must be encumbered with elaboration of some sort to be airtight. Airtight speech works better than leaky speech, especially in space.

Strop the tongue.
(c) 2022 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved