Spivak pronoun
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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 | |
| Male | He laughs | I hit him | His face bled | I am his | He shaves himself |
| Female | She laughs | I hit her | Her face bled | I am hers | She shaves herself |
| Singular they | They laugh | I hit them | Their face bled | I am theirs | They shave themself |
| Spivak (new) | Ey laughs | I hit em | Eir face bled | I am eirs | Ey shaves emself |
| Spivak (original) | E laughs | I hit em | Eir face bled | I am eirs | E shaves eirself |
Origin
The pronoun set was popularized by neologism by Michael Spivak, a mathematician-educator who used it in a number of books. Spivak writes:
- 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.
Comparison with other gender-neutral pronouns or constructions
The two most common systems have specific disadvantages:- "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 pronouncable, but can be ambiguous. It is also awkward to use plural verb forms for a singular person.
Where they are used
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.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. #redirect
Spivak is also the favoured choice of some people who have written about the subject, such as in [Footnotes: Pronouns] and in the [Gender-Neutral Pronoun FAQ].
Nomic games, especially on the Internet, often follow the game's inventor Peter Suber in using Spivak pronouns in their rulesets to easily refer to indefinite players.
Criticism
The major criticism of Spivak pronouns in academic circles is that in informal speech gender neutrality has not been a problem for centuries: speakers simply use singular they. The real problem is the arbitrary acceptance of completely untenable prescriptive grammar.Publications employing Spivak pronouns
- The Joy of TeX (Michael Spivak)
- Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry (Michael Spivak)
- Calculus on Manifolds (Michael Spivak)
- The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Logic, Law, Omnipotence, and Change (Peter Suber)
Trivia
In the event that E enters standard English, it will be the fourth word of one letter, the others being I, A, and O.References
| Gender-neutral pronouns |
|---|
| He | Singular they |
| Spivak | Ve | Xe | Ze | Sie/hir |
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