The only gender neutral word I know of is "it".
shouldn't it be better to bring back older english which is non abrasive than to use the term "it"?
'it' is abrasive ?
Singaporeans English is already one laughing stock, you want to bring back older English which will make us look like clowns?
So, civility is clownish?
Ferret, would you like everyone to call you it everyday of your life?
there's just not much need for those terms since 'he/she' can do the job pretty well.. u want to bring back that, it's equivalent to start calling singapore 'temasek' all over again..
The terms he/she is cumbersome. And what would you do about those not comfortable with being labeled a he or a she (genderqueer), people who identify as both (androgyne/bigendered), what about those who are gender confused or of undecided gender), then again, what about those who are transgender?
Wouldn't it be far easier to degender people than to use words that highly chance hurting them?
nope.. the use of such things dehumanises people... as political corectness dehumanises people, panders to hypocrisy and ultimately, is stupid...
use the correct terms..
if the person is female, use female pronouns..
if male, use male..
if hermaphrodite or of the third sex, ask them how to address them...
is that too hard to do?
well i understand what u mean..
but do u think many ple know wat is 'Ze', 'Sie', 'Hir'?
if hardly anyone knows, how meaningful can that be?
Originally posted by Strawberryshortcake70:The terms he/she is cumbersome. And what would you do about those not comfortable with being labeled a he or a she (genderqueer), people who identify as both (androgyne/bigendered), what about those who are gender confused or of undecided gender), then again, what about those who are transgender?
Wouldn't it be far easier to degender people than to use words that highly chance hurting them?
why is using he/she cumbersome and using hir and ze not cumbersome.. many ppl are not comfortable being labeled a hir/ze too.. becoz the person addressing them dun know what they are classified under.. if today i use hir or ze on someone, and i tell the person it can be used for both males and females, i will kena punch to death.. becoz the 1st thing that comes to that person's mind is that the person is �男�女..
if u are male, u r male, if u are female, u r female, ppl make mistakes abt ur gender, u correct them the way u want to.. nothing to feel hurt abt.. if one feel hurt abt the way ppl mistake his/her gender, he/she is not even confident of himself/herself to begin with, so dun expect others to be sympathetic towards his/her cause and go through all that trouble to please them..
What i meant to say was, instead of phrasing it as a question and blasting people when they give you an answer, you could have said outright that you are trying to persuade others to your views.
Some people are comfortable with 'it'. I am one of them. BFD to me.
but you seem to be damn agressive when it comes to "persuasion" and i can tell you that most people here do have a brain to think for themselves what they want to use when they wanna address another party.
i learn to repsetc everythin even if it is a piece of sement ang mor huay. i call ceramic "it" but i respect them aceri. so today my coochie i pee instead i never do it on the ceramic saikang toilet bowl i just piece at the void deck.
see i learn to respect the gender even if its an 'it'. BANZAI BAgsAI
'it' is not gender-neutral - it's gender-absent.
'he/she' is even worse. It basically asks the reader to have to choose between two genders.
'one' is the next best choice, but sometimes it can be awkward to phrase into a sentence.
And what in damnation is 'hir', 'sie', 'thon', and 'shey'? Sounds like some kind of effort at getting a politically-correct term to balance between male and female prounouns. Why reinvent the wheel? Just use 'they'! There's a long enough history of its use as a singular pronoun.