September 26, 2006 9:05 AM
On gender-free language
I've had the experience of having editors change every "he" in my writing to "he or she" - with awkward results like this:
When we meet our child's desire to learn when he or she is eager and ready, we express our confidence in him or her. Our child's learning will be a joyful experience and he or she will grow up loving to learn.
Aaaargh!!
In this instance, I edited the editing by changing to plural:
When we meet our children's desire to learn when they are eager and ready, we express our confidence in them. Our children's learning will be a joyful experience and they will grow up loving to learn.
That particular instance actually worked out well. But you can't always just switch to the plural, for instance when you're talking about teaching one particular child.
To try to forestall this type of politically-correct but graceless language in my next books, I wrote this in the introduction:
One other small but important note for readers: The modern oversensitivity to the use of “he” as a pronoun signifying an individual leads to many awkward remedies. There are only three grammatically correct alternatives. The first is to alternate “he” and “she” throughout the text to make things “fair.” But I hate switching gears like that when I’m reading and I’m going to assume most readers do too.The second is to change all use of the singular pronoun to plural, but that can create some real problems for a writer. Our training is to be precise with the language and when I want to talk about one child – your child – I want to talk only about him (oops, there I go – and I’m not even finished my explanation!)
The third is to replace the word “he” with three words: “he or she.” Considering that this text has 3260 instances of the word “he” that would add another 6520 words. And it sounds terrible.
As a former radical feminist, I know where this all started and I apologize for my part in it. Now as a writer, I find myself fighting on the other side – against copy editors who’ve been trained to make my words more “gender neutral.”
So this time, I’m asking my readers to please understand my use of the word “he” in the very old-fashioned way it was intended as a pronoun covering all individuals without regard to gender. It is not a slight on women or daughters – after all, I am one and have four of my own. I just want to focus on the task at hand and not be stumbling over words.
Agreed?
This is a different publisher than the one I've been working with, so I'm hoping they'll let it stand. But I was amazed when I totalled up the extra words. What a waste! I'd rather have those extra 6520 words to write about something real.
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Comments
I laughed out loud at this line: "As a former radical feminist, I know where this all started and I apologize for my part in it."
As a journalist, I completely agree with you about the annoyance of gender-neutral language and the grammatical issues using the plural can cause.
Posted by: miller_schloss | September 26, 2006 9:28 AM
I don't think it's a big deal at all, but I also don't see any problem or confusion caused by using he as the pronoun in one chapter and she for the next.
Posted by: Shauna | September 26, 2006 10:09 AM
totally agree barbara!
Posted by: Charity Grace | September 26, 2006 10:23 AM
What I find most odd is that severaL other languages, incl. the very PC French, use a masculine plural for the group and only use a feminine plural if all members of the group are female. One would think that the Academie francaise would be changing that- then again, this may be one of the rare instances in which a linguistic governing body is a good idea. As for German, which works the same way, I don't know, and they have bigger fish to fry in Russia!
Posted by: Katie Gillet | September 26, 2006 12:12 PM
I hope they let it stand too! It's so annoying to read and write that way. I couldn't believe it added an extra 6500 words. Wow!
Posted by: amelia | September 26, 2006 1:54 PM
This is funny; I hope they don't make you change it either. :) I stopped trying to be PC when I tried to force myself to use the word "African-American" before finding out the lady I was speaking with was actually from Haiti. That explains the funny looks she gave me. ;)
Posted by: Honey | September 26, 2006 9:05 PM
Amen, Barbara!
Posted by: Brian | September 26, 2006 9:22 PM
I'm in total agreement with you.
Posted by: Maggie | September 27, 2006 12:26 AM
