PC running amuck.
Just a linguistic nitpick. The asterisk is used to mark an unattested form—a form of a word that has never been found being actually used by anyone. It’s used for certain reasons:
- A reconstructed form of a protolanguage, like (*leyg-) Proto-Indo-European. All of its speakers are dead and it was never written down, so the reconstructions can never be directly verified.
- An example of how people don’t talk: “The adjective for ‘aware of systematic oppression’ is always woke, never *awoke.”
- Any other hypothetical form.
The suffix -man has seen a lot of use. Even if it disappears from use entirely, it’ll still be historically attested.
The classic usage on assembly instruction sheets is pared-down minimalism: “User can connect USB cable to computer port.” Even though it sounds like non-native speaker English, it’s familiar enough in its specific context that it doesn’t need to change. It was always inherently gender-neutral as a side effect of eliminating all grammatical determiners.
I’ve churned the gears in my skull plenty trying to come up with a better, more serviceable gender-neutral pronoun, but nothing as good as yours. Who knows, if it catches on, it might also be chosen by individuals someday.
Important clarification, Acsenray:
Is e meant to replace he and she, but not it? If so, instead of being gender-neutral, it would be the same as in Dutch and Swedish grammar, the “common gender,” which is still contrasted with the neuter. But if e can also replace it, then e’d be true gender-neutral.
English, Dutch, and Swedish all derive from Proto-Germanic, which has 3 genders. English retains all 3, but only in the 3rd person singular pronouns. Dutch and Swedish have collapsed the masculine and feminine into a single “common gender,” and retained a distinct neuter, generally.
From you, @Johanna, I consider that high praise indeed! I consider you my teacher on linguistic matters, so I feel like a star pupil!
On your question, I don’t have the deep background on the subject, so I didn’t think of it in the terms that you put it in.
I had conceived of these pronouns to apply to “persons” rather than “things.” Persons definitely includes all humans, but they could also include non-humans that we consider to have or treat as having personhood, which, depending on one’s personal attitudes, could include:
(1) Animal companions/pets, and other animals that we work together with, such as work animals.
(2) Other animals, generally mammals, with which we have certain relationships.
“Things,” to which I would not apply these pronouns, would include any non-living objects, whether natural or human-made. They might also include living things to which we don’t extend the status of persons, such as plants and most non-mammalian animals, and even mammals with which we don’t form bonds and relationships, either personal or mythical. Again, this could vary based on individual viewpoints.
This is called animacy. Indeed there can theoretically be an animacy hierarchy, and animacy vs inanimacy can be a basis for grammatical features, including grammatical gender. Note that even in Swedish and Dutch the genders are in a certain sense still not completely “natural” even though it’s common vs neuter, so for example sjö (lake) is common, and meisje (girl) is neuter.
Animacy is the basis for grammatical gender in Algonquian languages. I was studying Lenape and came across an anecdote: A young Lenape just beginning to learn the language was at a community dinner and asked for a piece of pie using the animate gender by mistake. The woman serving him said, “Careful, don’t break his leg!”
Tamil grammar first divides all nouns into classes of rational and non-rational: the former includes persons, deities, demons, etc., and the latter is everything else. Only the rational beings get grammatical gender, masculine and feminine. All the non-rational ones get no gender.
Ah, that would explain it. Apparently this is applicable in some respects to Bengali as well. (That’s my second language.) I was inspired to pursue this pronoun matter by the situation in Bengali, which distinguishes between pronouns for persons and non-persons, but not for male and female. So if there are newly recognized genders in society, Bengali needs no adjustments in pronoun usage. That’s what my goal is for English.
I didn’t have a name for this. Thanks!
Am I the only one who thinks that “firefighter” sounds more badass than “fireman” or “firewoman”?
At least one prophetic work suggests that this will happen by the year 6565.
One thing that strikes me as really ironic about this whole topic is the fact that English is already a far less gendered language than many others. In English, the only gendered words left are the third-person pronouns and a few vestigial nouns.
Contrast that with so many other languages where ALL nouns are gendered, and in particular, nouns that refer to persons (like “doctor” or “teacher”) exist in both masculine and feminine forms. AND furthermore, adjectives must match their noun or pronoun in gender. AND furthermore, in some languages, also the verb must match its subject in gender. (Hebrew, I’m looking at you.)
Adding even further irony, unlike all those highly gendered languages, English DOES have neuter third-person singular pronouns (it, its, itself) but they are so strongly attached to inanimate objects (and maybe some animals) that they’ve never gotten traction to use them for people. Other languages don’t even have that – everybody and every thing has to be either a “he” or a “she”.
No, it’s worse (or better?) than that — why would every such noun exist in two or more forms? E.g., in French, the most obvious noun that refers to persons, personne, is feminine, full stop. And yet French persons are human individuals of any sex, same as English persons.
Yeah, if man is still around.
It’s making some inroads in other languages. I often hear people refer to Latinx people instead of Latinos. But this phenomenon may be limited to the anglosphere. I don’t know if Latinx is gaining popularity in Mexico, Peru, or Argentina.
I don’t know either, but I will note that if you translate latino/latina into English you get Latin, as in Latin America, which has always been gender-neutral.
If so, that’s his problem, because I don’t think being a firefighter, or a tomboy, or what at one time was called a nursing sister, makes you more or less of a man or a woman.
For the same reason, I recommend the U.S. Air Force change the word airman.
I think the message to children should be that there is no right way to be a boy or girl, not that there is some indeterminacy of sex for the vast majority of people. And such a basic language construct as he/she.they is sending a message to children about that.
I realize that this view is related to the dreaded trans exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) line. However, it doesn’t preclude attempts at politeness, and it doesn’t preclude referring to non-binary (or trans) adults as they prefer, and doesn’t preclude referring to children as they and, especially, their parents, prefer.
Some will realize that this is a reference to a question at Joie Biden’s town hall last night, when I felt he gave the only possible general sort of answer to a related question.
A problem can arise when there is a mixed group - I have seen cases where, for example, a reporter is interviewing a group of firefighters and asking them all the same question, and it goes something like this:
“Bob, as a fireman, what’s your opinion on this latest round of budget cuts?”
(Bob answers the question)
“Sue, as a… uh… fire…person?.. what do you think about it?”
(Sue answers, but probably feels a bit degraded)
In a situation like that, it makes perfect sense to think about what you’re going to say.
One must always think about what one is going to say 
I mentioned before, a problem only arises if you use inconsistent or sexist terminology. So, in your example, either they are all firemen or they are all firefighters. The reporter shouldn’t start switching around in mid-interview (especially to fireperson— who says that? Down that road IMO it’s still better to seamlessly switch to “firewoman” when appropriate)
Last time I discussed this profession in a live conversation I went with “firefighter”. (Though maybe “fireman” is still the conservative option)
BTW I’m still not 100% sure what you should call the female of the werewolf
Wifwolf?
I never knew that “werewolf” had any gender connotation to begin with. Does it?