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Spivak pronoun

The Spivak pronouns are new terms proposed to serve as gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronouns in English (see gender-neutral pronouns). These neologisms are used by some people who feel that there are problems with gender-specific pronouns because they imply sex and/or gender (see non-sexist language). However, they are very rare compared to other solutions and most commentators feel that it is unlikely that they will catch on.

There are two variants of the Spivak pronouns in use, as shown in the table below. See Declension for more information on each of the cases.

Subject Object Possessive Adjective Possessive Pronoun Reflexive
Male He laughed I hit him His face bled I am his He shaves himself
Female She laughed I hit her Her face bled I am hers She shaves herself
Spivak Ey laughed I hit em Eir face bled I am eirs Ey shaves eirself
Spivak (alternative) E laughed I hit Em Em face bled I am Eirs E shaves Emself

This pronoun set was originated by Michael Spivak[?], a mathematician-educator[?] who used them in a number of books. These books include 'The Joy of Tex', 'Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry', and 'Calculus on Manifolds'. It's also the favoured choice of certain people who have written about the subject, such as in Footnotes: Pronouns (http://willow.dyndns.org/footnotes/pronouns) and in the Gender-Neutral Pronoun FAQ (http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/).

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

In the event that E enters the English language proper, it will be the fourth word of one letter, the others being I, A, and O.



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