Third-person personal pronouns in English

I’m proposing using thon (/ðʌn/; rhymes with ton, not con) instead of he and she and even the singular they. Let’s talk about Taylor, and I’ll explain what I dislike about other third-person personal pronouns in English.

	Nominative	Accusative	Dependent genitive	Independent genitive	Reflexive
(1)	Taylor has a book.	That book belongs to Taylor.	That is Taylor’s book.	That book is Taylor’s.
(2)	He has a book.	That book belongs to him.	That is his book.	The book is his.	He reads to himself.
(3)	She has a book.	That book belongs to her.	That is her book.	The book is hers.	She reads to herself.
(4)	They have a book.	That book belongs to them.	That is their book.	The book is theirs.	They read to themself/themselves.
(5)	Thon has a book.	That book belongs to thon.	That is thons book.	The book is thons.	Thon reads to thonself.

1. S/he isn’t very inclusive

Rows (2) and (3) follow the schemes of the typical he and she pronouns. I dislike them because they don’t work well for everyone. For those that these pronouns do work for, that’s great—but I think it’d be nice to have a solid gender-/genitalia-neutral option.

I specified genitalia-neutral in addition to just gender-neutral because some people still insist that “biological sex” is what really matters, and that typically just refers to the genitalia that a person has—more specifically, the genitalia that the doctor described that person as having at birth. That seems really weird to me. It seems like that would mean that, most of the time, people would just be guessing as to what genitalia other people have (and/or were born with). It seems like that would mean that he, in those cases, would basically just mean “this person who I think seems like has a penis and balls”. Again, that seems weird to me.

Who is entitled to know what genitalia I have? When is it appropriate for others to guess what genitalia I have (and/or was born with)? If there is a need for someone to know what genitalia I have (and/or was born with), couldn’t I just tell that person and/or show that person?

So, on top of it seeming weird, it seems rather unnecessary.

2. They has to go

Row (4) shows the most popular solution for a gender-/genitalia-neutral option for third-person personal pronouns: singular they. Some people hate it because it seems new and scary, but singular they has been around for a long time. I dislike it for other reasons: it means that the they pronouns are doing double-duty, which I do think can be a bit confusing, and it throws off how third-person singular pronouns conjugate verbs.

Look at the “Nominative” column. There’s “has”, “has”, “has”, “have”, and “has”. (It’s not in the table, but it would also make has.) Because they is typically plural, the verb conjugates to match that—even for singular they.

A similar issue pops up in the “Reflexive” column where they can become themselves or themself, and I have used both myself (or myselves).

I don’t really think that these conjugation issues are that big of an issue, but I think consistency can be nice. These issues are just the cherries on top of the issue of using they in both a plural and singular manner.

3. Thon is my favorite

Row (5) shows off how easy I think thon is. It only has three forms: thon, thons, and thonself. Rows (2) and (3) show four forms, and row (4) shows five (or even six!) forms.

Compared to other neopronouns (e.g., ze, fae), I think thon feels and sounds the most natural for English—if that makes sense. In fact, the thon that rhymes with con and not ton does also exist in some dialects of English—it’s an alteration of yon.

And thon has also been around for quite a while too. It was proposed by Charles Crozat Converse in 1858 as a gender-neutral pronoun, combining that and one.

4. This, that, and the othon

While I’m here proposing one pronoun, I figure I might as well propose another: othon (/ˈʌðʌn/; a combination of other and one or of other and thon). It seems fair to me—if he and she go, then there’s already an extra slot available!

I saved this for the end because I don’t want to burden the usage of thon by overcomplicating things; and, yet, I love overcomplicating things—for a good reason, of course.

Let’s look at the issue I’m trying to solve:

	Examples
(6)	She talked to her about the things that she likes.
(7)	She talked to her about the things that she likes.

Now, one might think that (6) and (7) are the same, but, if one looks closely, thon might see the difference. In (6), Mary is talking to Abby about the things that Mary likes. Yet, in (7), Mary is talking to Abby about the things that Abby likes. It’s obvious!

	Examples
(8)	She talked to her about her dog.
(9)	She talked to her about her dog.

Is Mary talking to Abby about Mary’s dog or about Abby’s dog?

This is an issue for he pronouns, she pronouns, they pronouns, and even thon pronouns! As far as I know, by default, the second “she” (etc.) is supposed to refer to the subject of the previous clause, but I’m not a prescriptivist. It’s up to the speaker/writer/etc. to avoid this kind of anaphoric ambiguity—to make sure that each pronoun/anaphor has a clear antecedent.

Of course, there are some other ways around it.

	Examples
(10)	Mary talked to her about the things that Mary likes.
(11)	She talked to Abby about the things that Abby likes.
(12)	She talked to her about the things that she herself likes.
(13)	Mary talked to her about Mary’s dog.
(14)	She talked to Abby about Abby’s dog.
(15)	She talked to her about her own dog.

In (10) and (11) as well as (13) and (14), the anaphora is minimized to clarify who the subject of the second clause is. This works, but I don’t love how they sound.

In (12), the ambiguity technically remains as this usage of “she herself” could be emphatic (i.e., that it’s emphasizing that the things are what Mary herself likes) or anaphoric, referring to the closest antecedent instead of the prior subject (i.e., to signal that the things are what Abby likes).

And (15) has something similar going on where “her own” could either be emphatic or anaphoric.

So, for (12) and (15) to work, one would just have to be consistent about using these kinds of structures anaphorically instead of emphatically.

Why did I go on this tangent?

Oh yeah. Instead, using othon to clarify a change of subject helps clear things up.

	Examples
(16)	Thon talked to thon about the things that thon likes.
(17)	Thon talked to thon about the things that othon likes.
(18)	Thon talked to thon about thons dog.
(19)	Thon talked to thon about othons dog.

In (17) and (19), since there are multiple antecedents, “othon” and “othons” (respectively) are being used to refer to the most recent antecedent.

I originally thought of using othon as the accusative form of the pronoun too, but it doesn’t seem necessary because the subject doesn’t need to be distinguished from the object.

	Examples
(20)	Thon talked to othon about the things that thon likes.
(21)	Thon talked to thonself about the things that thon likes.

Comparing (16) to (20), the second “thon” is replaced with “othon”. This could be to have harmony between this “othon” and the second “othon”, and I actually think this usage sounds nice, but it isn’t necessary. As shown in (21), when the subject and the object refer to the same person, the reflexive pronoun “thonself” is used.

5. Conclusion

That’s really it. Go and use thon—and at least think about othon.

Also, I do think it’s funny that half of what I wrote ended up being about othon even though I didn’t want to drown out thon, but that’s how it tends to go with me and my tangents.