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The Spivak pronouns are a proposed set of gender-neutral pronouns in English. They are not in widespread use, but have been employed in gender-neutral language by some people who dislike the more common alternatives "he/she" or singular they.

The (new) Spivak pronouns are formed from the pronoun "they" by dropping the "th".

There are two variants of the Spivak pronouns in use, as shown in the declension table below.

	Subject	Object	Possessive Adjective	Possessive Pronoun	Reflexive
Masculine	He laughs	I hugged him	His heart warmed	That is his	He loves himself
Feminine	She laughs	I hugged her	Her heart warmed	That is hers	She loves herself
Singular they	They laugh	I hugged them	Their heart warmed	That is theirs	They love themselves
Spivak (new)	Ey laughs	I hugged em	Eir heart warmed	That is eirs	Ey loves emself
Spivak (original)	E laughs	I hugged em	Eir heart warmed	That is eirs	E loves eirself

Contents 1 Origin 2 Comparison with alternatives 3 Usage 3.1 Criticism 3.2 Publications employing Spivak pronouns 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Origin

The pronoun set was popularized as neologisms by Michael Spivak, a mathematician-educator who used it in a number of books. Spivak writes:[1]

“

The original pronoun set was not created by me. I think I read about it in a newspaper clipping, perhaps from the Boston Globe, during the time I taught at Brandeis, and I believe it was credited to an anthropologist; later on, when I wanted to use it, I was unable to locate the source. In "The Joy of TeX", I wrote "Numerous approaches to this problem have been suggested, but one strikes me as particularly simple and sensible." I assumed people would figure that I was using a construction I couldn't properly credit, and not consider me so immodest as to praise my own invention (though I guess that was a rather immodest assumption). Michael Spivak, May 21 2006.

”

[edit] Comparison with alternatives

The two most common systems have specific disadvantages:

• "he or she", "him or her", "his or her", "his or hers", "himself or herself": These constructions are often perceived as long-winded and awkward.
• "he/she", "him/her", "his/her", "his/hers", "himself/herself": These constructs are often perceived as awkward and hindering pronunciation.
• singular they: This is more pronounceable, but it can be ambiguous.

Compared with other gender-neutral pronouns, Spivak (new) is easier to learn since the system stems directly from the well-known forms of "they". Supporters also feel that this derivation makes them more natural than the sie/ze/zie/xe forms.

[edit] Usage

Spivak is one of the allowable genders on many MUDs and MOOs. Others might include some selection of: masculine, feminine, neuter, either, both, "splat" (asterisk), plural, egotistical, royal, and 2nd. The selected gender determines how the game engine refers to a player.

On at least one MOO, LambdaMOO, they became standard practice for help texts ("The user may choose any description e likes"), referring to people of unknown gender ("Who was that guest yesterday, eir typing was terrible"), referring to people whose gender was known but without disclosing it ("Yes I've met Squiggle. E was nice."), or of course characters declaring themselves to be of gender Spivak. In recent years (2000 onwards), this usage is declining.^{[citation needed]}

Nomic games, especially on the Internet, often use Spivak pronouns in their rulesets, as a way to refer to indefinite players.

[edit] Criticism

The use of Spivak pronouns and other neologisms offered as alternative grammar or spelling is sometimes viewed by certain people as a 'linguistic pretension' with political overtones^{[citation needed]}, and its introduction may be received by some with the same degree of hostility associated with certain other neologisms with political overtones.

A more academic criticism stems from regarding Spivak pronouns as a prescriptive grammar, and an invention for the purpose of avoiding a prescribed "singular they" form. Supporters of the singular they argue that the form has been in use for centuries and thus is hardly a recent corruption of proper speech.

[edit] Publications employing Spivak pronouns

• Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction About Postmodernism (Steven Shaviro)
• The Joy of TeX (Michael Spivak)
• The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Logic, Law, Omnipotence, and Change (Peter Suber)

[edit] See also

• Generic antecedents
• Womyn

[edit] References

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009)

[edit] External links

• Gender-neutral pronoun FAQ on Aetherlumina.com

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