July132012

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

miraclesuprise:

whethervane:

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.”

THIS IS AWESOME??? I CAN TOTALLY GET BEHIND YO AS A NEUTRAL PRONOUN

This makes me really happy because it solves the grammar issues with ‘they’ and ‘them’ that fuck me up when trying to make a gender neutral sentence that is singular. The english word-nerd in me is freaking out.

Jegus, I love it when language spontaneously evolves like this. And this is such a good thing to have around too.

(Source: motherfuckerofbabylon)

linguistics language queue 

6,032 notes
  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
  5. madtraveler reblogged this from adypose
  6. adypose reblogged this from practicalandrogyny
  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
  13. flesh-pocket reblogged this from excessunrated
  14. plazmdc reblogged this from excessunrated
  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
  21. orima-kazooie reblogged this from thebigyears
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