Gender-neutral Third-Person Pronouns & Titles: Reasoned Solutions

The debate regarding gender-neutral pronouns has been raging for well over a century now. A good deal of suggestions have been raised, some more conventional (singular they), others more outlandish (ze). I am not a big fan of either of those: while my contempt for the latter and its ilk is because they sound outright ridiculous (to paraphrase a comment I’ve come across: they sound like something out of a bad sci-fi novel), my dissatisfaction with singular they is more concrete.

However, I would suggest that the ‘natural’ solution to this has been right under our noses this whole time:

A gender-neutralized form of he (as opposed to ‘epicene he’).

The interesting thing about he is that it could just as easily be a reflex of hēo (Old English for ‘she’) as it is of hē (Old English ‘he’), because the unchecked e vowel can be a reflex of both OE nuclei ē and ēo, e.g. OE bēo > Modern English be! or bee. As a matter of fact, that was indeed the case in Middle English: the pronoun she (or sche, or other variants) came to be somewhat artificially in Middle English because of a need to distinguish after the two merged. Indeed, some dialects apparently still have some relic of that merged form, although I could find nothing on its use in the oblique and genitive cases, or more about its present-day use.

Interestingly, up until the Middle Ages, the word for they was also related to he, with an initial h, but was gradually replaced (along with feminine he) by borrowed Norse equivalents beginning with þ (pronounced like th in thing) or ð (like th in this), for the sake of disambiguation, from north to south.



Roseborough, Margaret M. (1976). An Outline of Middle English Grammar. New York: The Macmillan Company, p. 70.

To illustrate, here is an example of a song featuring he to refer to a woman, dating back to the year 1300.



(EDIT: This seems to be debatable, but at any rate, using he for either male or female persons has a precedent.)



I propose that the logical solution for gender-neutral pronouns, if we want to avoid mixing plural pronouns with singular conjugations (as is the case with singular they), would be to use he for the nominative, him for the oblique, and her for the genitive. It would make some historic sense to use the forms which appear in the (always gender-neutral) plural as well, as English has a precedent of a plural pronoun overtaking the use of the singular in all contexts: ye (later you) replacing thou, in all dialects save a few in northern England and Scotland.

I listened to him as he volunteered herself and her parents.

For the reflexive, I propose herself, as it conforms to the displacement of the oblique case with the genitive in most pronouns dating as far back as Middle English (historically and dialectically even more than in Standard English today: see p. 61 here). Also, it makes for a more balanced declension in terms of gender association in present-day English (he, him are masculine, her, herself are feminine: 2 declensions each).



Alternatively, we could follow this precedent through and use the revived form hy for the nominative, although this would sound awkward on three accounts: it’s still a plural pronoun; it sounds too similar (and, in Cockney, identical) to another pronoun, I; and it sounds exactly the same as the interjection hi (with a somewhat etymologically unfaithful spelling to disambiguate). Should it be adopted regardless, hemselves would be the likeliest candidate, following the existing form themselves for easier adoption.

A similar issue has arisen with the titles Mr(s)., Ms., and Miss. Aside from the well-known issue of tacit sexism and the unwanted position of making a political statement with Ms., these titles are very binary-gendered. While a variety of gender-neutral alternatives have been proposed, none have been widely accepted, and they often have the issue of being just as gendered, if not moreso, albeit not for a binary gender. ‘Mx.’ (pronounced ‘mix’), ‘Misc.’, and ‘Mre.’ (for ‘mystery’), I would say, are the worst offenders, highlighting their non-conformity in an almost childish way, drawing attention to a detail which should really be inconsequential.

Thus, I would like to propose a more grounded neologism, based on a precedent set by Old English and its cognates: Har. This would be the reconstructed modern reflex of OE hearra ‘lord’, as the modern reflex of OE ea is a (e.g. heard > hard). This word is a cognate of Modern German Herr (as well as many other Germanic cognates), which derives from Old High German hērro, which in turn derives from Proto-Germanic *hairaz ‘grey, grey-haired’ (thereby older, thereby more exalted; compare Spanish señor, from Latin senior ‘older’, and Chinese 先生 xiānshēng, ‘Mr., sir’ lit. ‘born earlier’). As a matter of fact, it already has an attested cognate in Scots, a much closer relative of Modern English, meaning ‘old’ or ‘venerable’: hare. Far more concise and elegant, and has the added value of going against the sexist tendency to infantilize women, in my opinion; however, it might sound awkward in dialects that are non-rhotic, h-dropping dialects, or both.

Alternatively, we could use mister for women as well. This word, as well as master, ultimately derive from Latin magister, using the same suffix as minister. There is a precedent for doing away with the feminine differentiation there, considering that we often do away with the feminine forms ministress or mastress, so we could repeat the process in theory with mister as well. While it is not as concise or anti-infantilizing as Har, and still feels somewhat like an inkhorn term, it has the added value of not highlighting age but rather personal power.

I would love to see any of those catch on, and will readily stop using singular they for myself if they do.