Gender enders

Mother Jones, March-April, 2008 by Kiera Butler

DeAnn Dekuna, a writing instructor at Johns Hopkins University, is the latest in a long line of grammatical idealists trying to eradicate English's gender-specific pronouns. Her alternative is hu (pronounced "huh"). "I think hu is superior to yo," she says, referring to the gender-neutral pronoun born on the nearby mean streets of Baltimore.

"It's easier on the tongue." Maybe, but if his/herstory's any guide, hu has hu work cut out for hu.

PRONOUN(S)   FIRST USE                     SAMPLE USAGE

hyser        Charles P. Sherman in The     Pointing with hyser
             Literary World, 1884          finger westward ...

hse          Buwei Yang Chao's How to      Hse cooked some delicious
             Cook and Eat Chinese, 1945    General Tso's chicken.

co           Twin Oaks, an intentional     I saw co down at the co-op.
             community in Virginia, 1970

ve/vis       The "Manglish" column of      Ve needs vis man like a
             the feminist newspaper        fish needs a bicycle.
             Everywoman, 1970

na/nan       June Arnold's novel The       No once liked experimental
             Cook and the Carpenter,       fiction, but by the late
             1973                          '70s, non patience wore
                                           thin.

e/eir/em     Michael Spivak's software     Esays eirprogramming skills
             guide The Joy of Tex, 1990    are no match for em.

yo           Baltimore slang documented    Check it out--yo looks just
             in the journal American       like John Waters.
             Speech and heard on The
             Wire, current

hu           DeAnnDeLuna, current          Hu's on first.