Enlighten Me

[lucidacceptance]

Please, and tell me what is going on with the word "hir." I have a pretty good idea that it is supposed to reference "her" and "him" simultaneously, but I have no idea WHY. I also have no idea how it started and why I am suddenly seeing this word used everywhere. I guess I missed the evolution?

Speaking of evolution, the Wee One turned One on

Comments

[missysedai]

THere are a number of people who feel that we should have gender neutral pronouns, either because they feel this odd use of language is less sexist or because they feel that it makes things less awkward when you're trying to be inclusive of both genders without using other awkward constructions like s/he. I know people in both camps.

Zie and zir are also pretty popular gender neutral pronouns.

[lucidacceptance]

Thanks, Mags! (one of my favorite childhood friends was a gal I called "Mags" so I hope you don't mind if I call you that from time to time. If you won't let me, I guess I will have to birth another girl in order to get my daily Mags fix.)

I wonder what both camps think of French and Spanish, both of which are laden with feminine and masculine nouns. English has no formally recognized feminine or masculine nouns, but it has a handful of informal ones - for example, boats are almost uniformly referenced as "she," and so are most references to land/country.

I won't protest if it catches on and 100 years into the future it's in the dictionary and later becomes the standard. As for now, instead of cluttering my writing with awkward constructions like s/he, I tend to alternate between the two in an attempt to be inclusive to both genders. It works for me.

Are you in either of the two camps you speak of?

[missysedai]

You can call me anything but late for dinner, darlin'!

I'm not in either of the two, but I do try to be mindful of who I'm writing/speaking to if my audience is largely in one camp or another.

I fall squarely in the "English is just weird like that, don't take it so personally unless you'd rather be referred to as an it" camp. German, like French and Spanish, is also crammed with gender specfic nouns, but doesn't seem to have a lot of rhyme or reason applied to which should be called what. Milk and cream, for instance, are feminine, so you'd think other dairy products would be feminine as well, right? Butter and ice cream are neutral. WTF?

I do think German handles the issue of gender equality when speaking of people very well. There is the formal gender neutral "they" form, meant to refer to either gender - sie.

[shuffle2012]

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Both His OR Her [Hir] and Man OR Woman [WoMan] and other terms were popularised by Timothy Leary [and Robert Wilson to an extent] in his post 60s books such as 'Neuropolitique' and 'What does WoMan Want' amongst others. This is not only a gender issue with these authors but also an attempt to dissolve linguistic polarities in many areas of language and semantics.

The fact that language creates our idea of what reality is makes this an important and powerful issue.

Hope this helps.

Shuffle
==
: Reality is a domain of codes :

[lucidacceptance]

Leary? Wow. I am no literary scholar, but that surprises me. I followed you all the way up to dissolving linguistic polarities in areas of language and semantics. I am not sure I grip what polarities you are speaking of, but I'd sure like to give it a try if you will explain it a little further for me. I miss the intellectual challenges of school, so maybe you can help re-create some good discussion for me. Thanks!

I absolutely do understand and agree about the important role of language; it certainly makes the rules for what we can discuss. If our culture doesn't have a word for a particular feeling, event or phenomenon, it makes it very unlikely to place that something on the discussion table. An example would be a culture that has no word for what we call "depression." It would seem then that depression wouldn't exist for that culture, wouldn't it?

Okay, thanks for the food! LuCiDa

[shuffle2012]

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Hi... well I suppose polarities could mean opposities or maybe *binary* opposites - like man/woman, black/white,up/down and so on. I'm no literary scholar either I've just read a bitin this area. I think it's just that yup - language gives us a "map" of the world so we can get through it physically and emotionally but language also is a bit of a pain in the ass as it creates a prison for us as human beings.

By creating boundaries: self vs other - we maintain this illusion of seperateness. Ultimately this causes me not to like you on a micro level and nations to go to war over stupid things on a widerscale.

? Maybe ?!

[anonymous]

They're gender-neutral, intended to take the sexist bias out of language.

They're also VERY popular for and among transgendered, intersexed (hermaphrodite), gender-neutral and gender-queer folk, as a traditionally single-sexed pronoun would not fit all that well.

Best

[lucidacceptance]

"They're also VERY popular for and among transgendered, intersexed (hermaphrodite), gender-neutral and gender-queer folk, as a traditionally single-sexed pronoun would not fit all that well."

Of all the rationale I have heard about using these pronouns, this is the best reason I have come across yet. I was ambivalent, at first, to be honest, but now that I am able to put faces to what was otherwise a foggy, generalized group, I see benefits.