A gender-neutral third-person pronoun has arisen spontaneously as a part of kids' slang in Baltimore

annethecatdetective:

notcuddles:

queerandpresentdanger:

“What’s also interesting about the kids’ language is that people — mostly academics — have been trying to introduce a gender-neutral singular pronoun into the English language for about 200 years, with very little success. And then a group of kids in Baltimore just make one up and start using it.”

Which, really, is the only way to get anything to change in a language, I think. It has to happen organically or it just doesn’t feel natural and people wont use it.

That is really interesting. I think to me it sounds better than some of the terms people have tried to invent, maybe because of that organic quality. I mean, I’ll call people what they want to be called, pronoun-wise, because whether or not a word appeals to ME is so not the point, but… Eh, I don’t know. It’s an interesting article regardless, that’s all.

(via breakthebinary)

Source: motherfuckerofbabylon

6032 Notes/ Hide

  1. thewolfyears reblogged this from glitterarygetsit
  2. glitterarygetsit reblogged this from qthewetsprocket and added:
    SO COOL. I love, love, love slang—it’s so quick and adaptive and you can see the English language changing right before...
  3. qthewetsprocket reblogged this from madtraveler
  4. kekestew reblogged this from adypose
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  7. talizorah-narrayya reblogged this from loislame
  8. loislame reblogged this from nomoremrnicespice
  9. stuffandthinks reblogged this from elephantsandorchids and added:
    For the bold. Yes.
  10. elephantsandorchids reblogged this from nomoremrnicespice
  11. nomoremrnicespice reblogged this from holisticsexualhealth and added:
    I wish people reblogging this article would acknowledge this! Ethnic ties totally do matter; taking language that you...
  12. nannairb reblogged this from excessunrated
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  15. excessunrated reblogged this from sidlevalen and added:
    I’ve noticed this around my area too. I’m voting that “yo” be the official gender neutral pronoun for the english...
  16. sidlevalen reblogged this from mrblusky
  17. equationforanescape reblogged this from resmc
  18. fetalpile reblogged this from wizzlbang
  19. wizzlbang reblogged this from jesuslizardjournal and added:
    “yo”. This is what happens when we leave important thinks to children. “Yo”.
  20. jesuslizardjournal reblogged this from orima-kazooie
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