Pronoun Usage Survey

[Jubal]

Had this survey shared on my FB recently:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XBG5BTV

It's quite interesting, especially thinking about different sorts of pronouns and how they can be used.

I guess for myself, I try to just roll with people's own preferences - the only one I really have a gut reaction against is referring to someone as it, I'd do it if a friend really wanted me to but the strong implication of inanimate-ness that it implies is something that grates on me a lot. I suspect that they/their as a singular pronoun is the way things will go for most non-binary people, because it's already a semi-accepted non-gendered singular (though some people dislike it as they either erroneously believe it's always plural, or slightly more logically feel it carries a rather distant implication as it's most commonly used in the singular when people don't know the gender of - and thus by implication don't know well - a person). By contrast, Xe/Xemself and the z-based equivalents I think jar more with usual English words and are harder for people to pick up.

[Glaurung]

It's an interesting idea, but (as with so many surveys) I often want to know what the question actually means before I feel happy answering it.

More generally, on third-person pronouns:
- I try to use each person's own preferred pronouns, where I know their preference. Unfortunately the bit of my brain that does gender recognition seems to be hard-wired to the bit that does language, and they sometimes outflank the bit that wants to be respectful of people
- Using "it" etc. for a person would feel odd to me - for me, those pronouns strongly imply something being inanimate, or at least not human.
- I would very much like for the default third-person pronouns in English to be non-gendered; unfortunately, I think it will be quite a struggle. "They" seems the one with the best chance of acceptance - I can see why people have invented various others, but none of them feel right for me.

[comrade_general]

The only thing I know about a 'pro'noun is that it's no longer an amateur.

[Flamekebab]

Such a dizzying number of options. I'm wondering if it was one of those unifying standards situations..?

[Jubal]

Yes - I think re the survey, it definitely lacks a better explanation of circumstance. One friend noted to me the point that many people will use different pronouns in different circumstances (for example if they don't want to be "outed" to their parents). I felt the lack of an "I think this is syntactically confusing but would use this phrasing if asked" was also an issue for me. Also in the social media question the lack of an "other" option made me sad because I couldn't then put Exilian down

As for other pronouns, I think xe/ze etc have the problem that they (probably intentionally) look a bit "different" to the letter collections one expects in an English word. em or phe or some other more English-looking construction might be easier to get people to adopt, though I'm not sure. The most hellish experience I've had with this is actually in writing ForgeFyre, where avid readers (which is to say, nobody) may have noted that Voice is never given a pronoun on account of having no gender, which makes sense but makes it really tough to get the phrasing right.

FK: yes, that seems somewhat right. I should note that some of the pronouns in the survey are, I'm fairly sure "made up" rather than being in regular usage (bunself I'm fairly sure is Not A Thing). I did once look through a lot of articles on this and I think there have been at least 14 or 15 third-gender pronouns suggested. The most common options seem to be xe, them, and em, with them being by far the most used. I know only one person who uses xe and quite a few more who use they.