Playing With Pronouns

03/09/15

So, reading Hire With Your Head has introduced me to an idea I never really considered. In it, whenever the author is referring to a person who is—for all intents and purposes—ungendered, he seems to pick a gender at random.

I like this. In fact, it's much better than resorting to using "them" as a non-gendered means of referring to an ungendered individual. I mean, that's what's happening to the language, as far as I know, but I don't have to follow that mutation of English if I've found something I prefer. In fact, I might just play with just using female pronouns for ungendered persons. You know, to cancel out all those overused male pronouns.

I guess there's a lot of people who would do that in a facetious sense, but I find no problem with doing it in an honest and earnest fashion. I'm sure any reader of this site wouldn't mind me calling her a she. I mean, if I refer to a reader at all, I'll already be putting words into her mouth, I see no harm in implying a gender. Not like saying "he" wouldn't be doing that. If "he" can be gender-neutral, so can "she".

Though, it occurs to me, Stephan, that I don't refer to readers very often in this blog. I wonder why that is.