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There is no gender neutral word to use instead of he and she. This is a real problem. Gender is not always known or relevant.
it?
that thing?
Sir/Madam
They
Someone
Just say they, whether or not you convert it to plural. There’s a long history in English of doing this.
If anyone has a question, they should raise their hand.
Using “it” for a person is insulting in English.
Using the wrong gender (i.e. addressing a man as “Miss” or “Her”) is vastly more insulting than using “he/she” or “sir/madam”. Be happy English is less gendered than it used to be (at least the 2nd person, “you” is gender-free, and we don’t have to deal with an informal/formal 2nd person which in many languages is a good way to insult someone).
The rules can change based on popular usage. It is a living language.
Traditionally, sentences are written using the male term when referring to an unknown or either gender.
Why are cars referred to as “she”?
Agav: Is there a shidduch crisis among older cars? If there are X new cars produced every year on an island, will the old ones get neglected and go off the derech?
that’s a stupid tradition.
So you say.
Well, that’s a stupid tradition.
Instead of thinking of “he” as meaning male, think of it as meaning: male or unknown.
Makes sense to me. It is less bulky to choose one of the pronouns to use in unknown cases than to make a separate pronoun.
The Economist magazine, for example, had always used the male terms as the default whenever it wasn’t specifically referring to a female.
You can usually get around it with a little effort and some careful use of plurals. For example, instead of saying, “If a CR poster disagrees with me, then he’s wrong.” one could say “If CR posters disagree with me, then they are wrong.”
Sure, or you can get around the use of plurals, with some clever use of idiocy.
For example, instead of saying giraffes have long necks, say each giraffe has a long neck.
Not sure why you distort your sentences to avoid use of the nongender specific “he” any more than to avoid use of plurals.
Sample sentence:
If anyone has a question, it should raise its hand.
If anyone has a question, Sir/Madam should raise Sir/Madam’s hand.
If anyone has a question, they should raise their hand.
If anyone has a question, someone should raise someone’s hand.
Those who have questions should raise their hands.
Problem solved.
How about, “If anyone has a question, please raise a hand.” Avoids gender altogether.
YW Moderator-42
Life, The Coffee Room, and Subtitles.
Why are cars referred to as “she”?
This would depend if front or rear wheel drive
Agav: Is there a shidduch crisis among older cars? If there are X new cars produced every year on an island, will the old ones get neglected and go off the derech?
Yes if you dont watch the road you go of the derech
“Anyone who has a question should raise his hand. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, the usage of any pronouns are, to the extent the context requires, used in the generic form rather than the gender specific form.”
Problem solved. In a much better way.
Seriously, nobody is saying that the generic person is a man. There just has to be a generic form, and somebody I don’t know when started using the male form.
Maybe the english language used to have only a male form which was used for everybody (and naturally wasn’t male or female then), and then a female form was added but they kept the male form for generic use. I don’t know. Notice that English doesn’t have gender specific plural forms but other languages (hebrew) do. It’s a linguistic fluke. What’s the difference?
Why does this itch you so bad? Do you think men care that aircraft carriers and fighter jets are all female? I can tell you that it has never once occurred to me to care. (Although I tend to agree that Corollas are female.)
When someone says, “if anyone has a question, he should raise his hand” to a mixed audience–you assume he only means men should raise their hands? No. So what’s the issue?
And do you assume that my question in the previous paragraph is only asked by a man? No.
How about:
If anyone in the audience has a question please raise your hand.
The U.S. Constitution uses the male form in the generic sense referring to either or both.
Nu, it worked then and it works now. I bet you still use some seforim older than 1787 without advocating they be rewritten. 🙂
Did “she” and “her” exist in English in 1787?
Yes
Those who have questions should raise their hands.
Problem not solved. Plurals are plurals.
Yes, plurals are plurals. What does that have to do with anything?
Haifagirl, you’re joking.
Right?
No, I’m not. I didn’t understand your point.
wait what about people without hands what should they raise??
Picturesq – Yes, I do have seforim at home that were written before 1787 (my chumash, for example…) and I’m not suggesting they be rewritten.
However, I also do not use them as a guide to grammar.
Those seforim are important because of their content, but everyone understands that grammar and word choice changes over time.
None of the changes to the English language since 1787 have included adding a “gender neutral word to use instead of he and she” that the OP is seeking.
From The Economist Style Guide (current edition) under the section entitled “Political Correctness”:
HE, SHE, THEY
You also have a duty to grammar. The struggle to be gender-neutral rests on a misconception about Gender, a grammatical convention to make words masculine, feminine or neuter. Since English is unusual in assigning few genders to nouns other than those relating to people (ships and countries are exceptions), feminists have come to argue that language should be gender-neutral.
And, so long as you are not insensitive in other ways, few women will be offended if you restrain yourself from putting or she after every he. (emphasis added)
He or she which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him or her depart; his or her passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his or her purse:
We would not die in that person’s company
That fears his or her fellowship to die with us.
So do not be ashamed of sometimes using man to include women, or making he do for she.
Amen!
is there a gender neutral word for a niece/nephew//uncle/aunt?
The words “goddess”, “princess” and “queen” are actually very demeaning.
So what exactly are we supposed to call Elizabeth II Regina?
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