New Pronoun Observed In The Wild!

[catsittingstill]

Since I was a kid, I have felt the lack of a third person singular gender neutral pronoun in English.  (Like he or she, but without specifiying if the person you mean is male or female.)

I started out using "they" as if it were number neutral, but I could never get the verbs to match naturally.  ("When a new student comes to college, they often finds new friends."?  "When a new student comes to college, they often find new friends."?)

Then I read a science fiction book that used "per" so I tried that.  Never felt right.

Then someone (I think it may have been my mom, actually) pointed out that German already has such a pronoun--"zie."  Well, English being a language that thinks nothing of pickpocketing other languages for spare vocabulary, I felt free to try that.  That actually works okay for me.  I just can't seem to persuade anyone else to use it.

But now a new third person singular gender neutral pronoun has been spotted in the wild, in general use among school kids in Baltimore.  Read about it here.

"Yo."  I don't know if I can get used to it.  I guess I can if other people can.  We'll see if it spreads.

Comments

[ndrosen.livejournal.com]

Ich stimme damit uberein. (I agree with that.) Ich habe Deutsch auch gelernt, und ich habe "zie" nie gesehen. (I have also studied German, and I have never seen "zie.")

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the correction--I'll fix it.