July 2016 - Ann Henry Editor and Author

Z-Nouns: A Modest Proposal

The solution I propose below is not meant to fly in the face of convention, with which I have no problem, but to ease a path to brevity and clarity in prose without offending either the male or female individual of our species.

Personally, I have no objection to using all masculine pronouns when denoting persons of mixed or unknown gender. In such cases, my mind simply glosses over that he, his, or him, realizing that it is all inclusive, and moves right on to the meat of the matter. But apparently some people think it misrepresentative, and this has led to quite a conundrum for us writers.

Over the past twenty years or so I have seen any number of possible alternatives in print—everything from using he or she, he/she or s/he to alternating the gender of the all-inclusive pronoun from masculine to feminine every other sentence/paragraph/chapter to simply switching exclusively to all feminine pronouns, never mind the common misuse of the plural pronoun their to indicate singular possession by a person of unknown gender.

Unfortunately, none of these “solutions” works for me. And so, as a writer who wishes to shun klutzy prose while still remaining both grammatically and politically correct, I have felt compelled to come up with a new set of all-inclusive pronouns. Here is my proposal:

zee for the nominative (he/she)

zerm for the objective (him/her)

zir for the possessive (his/her)

zermself for the reflexive (himself/herself)

If you consider this to be a totally silly or even repugnant idea, I understand. No hard feelings. But if this strikes you as a reasonable solution to the current chaos in the literary world when it comes to nebulous pronouns, then please join me in this bloodless revolution.

Remember: WORDS SHALL SET YOU FREE!

I believe that every writer should have the license to use whatever words zee thinks will best express zir thoughts, opinions, and stories and that zee should never feel ashamed of zermself for using the words zee thinks will best achieve that goal. I hope you agree.