Sweden adds gender-neutral pronoun to dictionary

[midnight]

"The official dictionary of the Swedish language will introduce a gender-neutral pronoun in April, editors at the Swedish Academy have announced.

“Hen” will be added to “han” (he) and “hon” (she) as one of 13,000 new words in the latest edition of the Swedish Academy’s SAOL.


Is it time we agreed on a gender-neutral singular pronoun?
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The pronoun is used to refer to a person without revealing their gender – either because it is unknown, because the person is transgender, or the speaker or writer deems the gender to be superfluous information.

“For those who use the pronoun, it’s obviously a strength that it is now in the dictionary,” one of the editors, Sture Berg, told AFP on Tuesday."




http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/sweden-adds-gender-neutral-pronoun-to-dictionary

[Lucky Luciano]

1. We should do that.

I hate saying "he or she" all the time.

[Little Tich]

2. “Hen” or even worse “henom” is very useful, but it doesn't sound right,

at least not to me. I still refuse to use it, but some Swedish people use it regularly. It could perhaps be compared to the plural of “you” in British English that has crept in. (As in “How are yous?”)

All languages change over time, and I really don't think this is some feminist BS. Sometimes it's actually easier to speak about people in gender neutral terms.