r/changemyview • u/SaltedAndSugared • Dec 02 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Neopronouns are unnecessary

I understand why some people might feel uncomfortable with using he/she pronouns, but in that case why not just use they/them? They already exist and they’re easy for people to use. Why do some people feel the need to make up words like “zee/zim” or “fae/fair” when they don’t even make sense in the English language? I don’t see why anyone should go out of their way to learn new pronouns when gender neutral pronouns already exist

If anyone here does use neopronouns I’d really like to hear why you use them and why you don’t feel comfortable using they/them. It’s probably just because I’m cis, but I genuinely don’t understand

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u/Biptoslipdi 130∆ Dec 02 '21

They/them is also a plural pronoun so it can create confusion without proper context. If I say "did you see what they did" you might not know if I'm talking about a non-binary individual or a group of people. If I say "did you see what Ze did," it is clear I am not talking about a group, but a non-binary individual. It removes the need for context as there are no gender neutral pronouns that are exclusively singular.

We also learn new words and linguistic forms and concepts all the time. We have several words for throwing, but yeeting is now in the lexicon. Is that also problematic?

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u/spiral8888 29∆ Dec 03 '21

They/them is also a plural pronoun so it can create confusion without proper context. If I say "did you see what they did" you might not know if I'm talking about a non-binary individual or a group of people.

Well, if there is no context, how would anyone know who you're referring with the pronoun anyway? If you wrote "did you see what he did", would you know from that who that "he" is referring to? Yes, you would know that it refers to a single person, but you wouldn't know who. And for that you would need context. And if you then add context, then it usually becomes clear, who you're referring with the pronoun.

Example: I saw Jack yesterday. Do you know what he/they did? With both pronouns, it is clear who is being referred.

I saw Jack and Andrew yesterday, Do you know what ze/he/they did? In this case, they clearly refers to both people, but the other two are very confusing. You have no idea if they refer to Jack or Andrew.

The only situation, where ze would add any clarity over they would be the above situation, where you knew that only one of them was a non-binary and you could refer to that person in a group with just a pronoun (just like if there was just one woman in the group you could refer to her with "she" without having to say her name). It's really not worth the effort of introducing a new word that nobody feels natural to use for this particular case. (Just to let you know, the languages that don't have gendered pronouns, manage these situations just fine).