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Gender Neutral terms.
4 years ago
I am writing a story that has several species that reproduce without genders.
And I am having trouble finding a good replacement for Him/Her He/She, I have already gone through the list of current replacement terms but they aren't something I can use.
I have used the characters first names, but if two people talk about them in a situation they have to use the name so many times it become monotonous.
I like Hir, while written that's a good word, but when spoken would be easily confused with her, especially since the people speaking are of different ethnicities.
So whose got some good Him/Her He/She replacements?
Oh, not plural words like"they" please, since that makes the writing very confusing.
And I am having trouble finding a good replacement for Him/Her He/She, I have already gone through the list of current replacement terms but they aren't something I can use.
I have used the characters first names, but if two people talk about them in a situation they have to use the name so many times it become monotonous.
I like Hir, while written that's a good word, but when spoken would be easily confused with her, especially since the people speaking are of different ethnicities.
So whose got some good Him/Her He/She replacements?
Oh, not plural words like"they" please, since that makes the writing very confusing.
That can mean either 1 person or many.
I want to avoid the reader having to figure it out.
Without being those words just changed.
In my alien race Kastans, there's a third, sexless population represented by the word skiir (rhymes with here). Thus you have the group identifiers male/female/skiir with referents him/her/kiir and possessives his/hers/kiirs.
the species in question lack gender all together, so it's less of a name for a gender and more of how to we say no gender?
I'm not sure I want to make a name for something that doesn't exist.
Worthy of further consideration though!
I don't want the reader/watcher to have to figure it out each time.
E
Em
Eir or Eirs
Eirself or Emself.
That being said, it's quite possible to make it clear they/them is referring to a single person via context. Also, using "Themself" instead of "Themselves" (Themself being approved by an official online encyclopedia as grammatically correct) helps as well.
However, there's also more gender neutral pronouns than that, and it doesn't hurt to give more options.
And just to compare to a more commonly understood set of pronouns, for reference.
He
Him
His
Himself
Got any other ideas?
I am not going down the "They" route, thank you though.
ve/ver/vis/vers/verself?
Do you have any you've created?
uh... well, I can make a set for you right now right off the top of my head.
ae/aen/ael/aelself
Not sure how it would work for writing.
Thanks, I'll have to think about it some more.
are we stealing aether's thunder? XD
Reading over this series of comments, I notice you have a lot of problems with the suggestions. Gender neutral terms already exist, but you don't want those. They can't sound like they derive from other gender terms, they can't be plural....
Aren't you being a bit hypocritical? Sounds like you are looking for an answer that nobody could possibly provide!
I don't expect it to come easily since it is a new word being created.
I don't want it to be just a variation on a current word, I don't want to use They, and I'd like it to be as easy to say as it's gendered counterparts.
Obviously this is not an easy task, that's why I am asking a community that has a lot of variation in gender.