Information AboutSpivak Pronoun |
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The Spivak pronouns are a proposed set of Gender-neutral Pronoun s in English . They are used as Non-sexist Language by some people who dislike the more common alternatives "he/she" or Singular They . The (new) Spivak pronouns are formed from the pronoun "they" by dropping the "th". There are two variants of the Spivak pronouns in use, as shown in the Declension table below. ORIGIN The original pronoun set is a Neologism by Michael Spivak , a Mathematician - Educator who used it in a number of books. COMPARISON WITH OTHER GENDER-NEUTRAL PRONOUNS OR CONSTRUCTIONS The two most common systems have specific disadvantages:
Compared with other gender-neutral pronouns, Spivak (new) is easier to learn since the system stems directly from the well-known forms of "they". Supporters also feel that this derivation makes them more natural than the sie/ze/zie/xe forms. WHERE THEY ARE USED Spivak is one of the allowable genders on many , Female , neuter, either, both, Splat , plural, egotistical, royal, and 2nd. The selected gender determines how the game engine refers to a player. On at least one MOO, LambdaMOO , they became standard practice for help texts ("The user may choose any description e likes"), referring to people of unknown gender ("Who was that guest yesterday, eir typing was terrible"), referring to people whose gender was known but without disclosing it ("Yes I've met Squiggle. E was nice."), or of course characters declaring themselves to be of gender Spivak. In recent years (2000 onwards), this usage is declining. Spivak is also the favoured choice of some people who have written about the subject, such as in Footnotes: Pronouns and in the Gender-Neutral Pronoun FAQ . Nomic games, especially on the Internet, often follow the game's inventor Peter Suber in using Spivak pronouns in their rulesets to easily refer to indefinite players. Publications employing Spivak pronouns
TRIVIA In the event that E enters standard English, it will be the fourth Word Of One Letter , the others being '''I''', '''A''', and '''O'''. REFERENCES |
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