Re[2]: He/She

[Betsy Smith <betsys -at- OKWAY -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>]

     I don't think I want to be "sex-neutral."  Why is the sexual aspect of
     your personality a negative?


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: He/She
Author:  Beverly Parks <bparks -at- HUACHUCA-EMH1 -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL> at SMTP
Date:    8/9/95 1:31 PM


John Renish <John -dot- Renish -at- CONNER -dot- COM> wrote-->
  So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a new
  sex-neutral pronoun (including all the necessary cases) that everybody will
  quickly embrace.
============
Beverly Parks -- bparks -at- huachuca-emh1 -dot- army -dot- mil wrote-->
  Hmmm...
  I have several suggestions:

    Male   Female   Neutral1        Neutral2        Neutral3

    he     she      ze  [long e]    ze  [long e]    te  [long e]
    him    her      zeh [short e]   zin [short i]   tey [long a]
    his    hers     zes [short e]   zis [short i]   tes [short e]
=============
Janet Christian <janetc -at- AUSTIN -dot- APPLE -dot- COM> added-->
  I was thinking about this during my morning commute and also came up with
  the idea Beverly expressed as Neutral3. I like the "te" forms for a couple
  of reasons -- pretty much the same ones Beverly expressed. They are
  completely neutral while still evoking the mental connection of "they."
=============
I wonder if it would be important to maintain the pattern I
noticed while reading Janet's post:

He, him, his;
she, her, hers;
and even Neutral1&2,

all have the pattern of long vowel, short vowel, short vowel.
(Okay, "her" and "hers" aren't really short sounds, but the
pattern is still there.)
Perhaps an alternative to "tey" in Neutral3 could be "teh" with
a short e sound (like the "zeh" in Neutral1).

Bev (with nothing better to do right now)

   =*=   Beverly Parks -- bparks -at- huachuca-emh1 -dot- army -dot- mil   =*=
   =*=     Huachuca : That's pronounced "wah-CHEW-ka"     =*=
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