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> A new third person singular pronoun, Potential for gender-neutral game books
hyzmarca
post Jan 18 2008, 05:41 PM
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So, the issue of the use of gender specific pronouns in game books has come up before, with the general consensus that the general non-specific 'he/him/his' is grammatically correct but the use of female pronouns makes the book more friendly to female gamers. Of course, making it more friendly for female gamers may make it more hostile to male gamers.

This quandary stems from the English language's lack of a gender-neutral third-person pronoun for living beings. It, while gender neutral, only refers to inanimate things and is, thus, far more hostile a choice than any gender-specific pronoun could be.

But, a solution has presented itself in Maryland - 'yo'.

'Yo' is, apparently, a gender neutral third person singular pronoun which refers to a person.

QUOTE
This article presents data collected on the use of yo in schools in Baltimore as a new third-person singular pronoun, as in Yo handin' out papers `She (the teacher) is handing out papers' and Peep yo `Look at him'. In the spring of 2004, a number of middle and high school teachers enrolled in a graduate linguistics class for teachers noted that their students at certain city schools were using yo in place of he or she. The authors collected spontaneous occurrences of the pronoun and then designed several writing activities and sentence judgment tasks. The tasks were administered to more than 200 students in two unrelated schools in Baltimore. It was clear from the results that students in these two schools use yo as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, primarily in subject position. Limited follow-up was conducted in the spring of 2007.


http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog...ves/005298.html
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/gramm...yo-pronoun.aspx

The use of "yo" as a gender neutral third person singular pronoun is a potential boon to English language game designers, who are no longer forced to choose between potentially alienating gendered pronouns.
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nezumi
post Jan 18 2008, 07:37 PM
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As a current Baltimore resident, I feel compelled to hide. Yo.
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Adarael
post Jan 18 2008, 08:12 PM
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That's whack, yo!
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Moon-Hawk
post Jan 18 2008, 08:18 PM
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Or, if you'd like to read an article about the last six attempts at an English gender neutral pronoun, look no further.
And out of the seven, "Yo" is by far the stupidest, IMHO.
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Fortune
post Jan 18 2008, 09:24 PM
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Yo Mama!
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