Personal pronouns
Essentially, a personal pronoun is a basic as shit grammatical rule that substitutes for a noun, a concept that has recently succumbed to the abuse of Tumblrtards and autists who seek to maintain their special snowflake status.
Most languages have three different types of personal pronouns - first-person (I, we), second-person (you) and third-person (he, she, it, they). However, when the Internet talks about personal pronouns, it's usually only talking about third-person pronouns.
Linguistics
In English, the third-person pronoun really only exists for one reason: to avoid repetition in sentences. So, instead of saying, "Today I went to the store and murdered a social justice warrior. The social justice warrior screamed like a little bitch, especially when I tore out the social justice warrior's guts and used the social justice warrior's guts to make a new coat," one could say, "Today I went to the store and murdered a social justice warrior. He screamed like a little bitch, especially when I tore out his guts and used them to make a new coat." This saves time for everyone, and ensures that the thrilling story you are trying to tell doesn't get too boring.
For quite a while, English has consistently had only three genders for singular third-person pronouns: he/him/his (for guys), she/her/hers (for girls), it/its (for concepts, physical things and some animals) and one plural they/them/their (for people whose gender the speaker doesn't yet know, people in general, hermaphrodites and special snowflakes who are too awesome to "conform" to the gender binary). While they can also be used as the plural for all third-person pronouns, it's long been accepted as a singular pronoun as well. The only times this causes problems are in rare cases such as in the sentence, "They killed them," where it's not clear who is singular and who is plural. Cases like this don't occur very often though, and it's usually easy enough to tell what the speaker means by context.
Most of us are perfectly happy being referred to by normal, everyday pronouns (a pronoun, by definition, should be as simple as possible, since its main job is to neatly replace nouns and make sentences more brisk). However, special snowflakes, as usual, don't like the idea of being normal in any way, so they insist on making multiple sets of "new" pronouns and forcing everyone to refer to them by said pronouns, instead of the long-standing traditional ones we've always had. If you refuse to do this, you are "misgendering" them (despite the fact that the idiots who demand unique pronouns are usually the same idiots who term themselves as non-binary (not male or female), meaning that using they, a gender-neutral pronoun, would not be misgendering them).
In theory, inventing one singular third-person pronoun to replace they could have some practical use, if only to more comfortably refer to people in a general way. For example, "If anyone here wants a coke, they should get it themselves." While it's true that the singular they is fine most of the time, it can be ambigous on occasion, due to it serving as both a singular and plural pronoun. The same confusion often arises from you; since its singular and plural forms are the same, sentences such as, "You should come to the party," uttered in a room with more than two people, can cause confusion. Because of this, makeshift plurals for you were invented, such as you guys and ya'll.
Problems bigger than "misgendering" arise
The main problem with inventing a new set of pronouns is that, in English, pronouns are classified in what's called a closed class, meaning that it's very difficult to just add new words into that category, as opposed to things like new nouns and verbs, which are very easy to create. This is exacerbated by the huge amount of people who speak English. Any new closed class words that people managed to invent would likely just stay regional. Pronouns are simply too common to mess around with, and only retards try to. Of course, the unlikeliness of managing to invent a new pronoun soon turns to straight-up impossibility once you realize that the social justice warriors are too autistic to just create one new pronoun, and instead have to create shit-tons of them. After all, if everyone else is using the pronoun, it's not special anymore, is it?
Another thing that makes contriving new pronouns very difficult is the fact that pronouns in English have what's known as cases, wherein the pronoun changes depending on how it's being used in a sentence. We don't just have I; we have I, me, my, mine and myself. This means that any new pronouns would have to have separate cases as well. It gets worse when social justice warriors decide that mundane, general things like per and ze/hir aren't special enough. What's the good of making up new pronouns if other people use them? Everyone needs unique pronouns because, to social justice warriors, pronouns aren't just rigid parts of grammar intended to replace nouns - they're accessories!
Thus, snowflakes invented what's called "nounself" pronouns. Usually, this simply involves taking a word, then using just the first syllable of it. Because social justice warriors are so lazy, they rarely get creative with the different cases either, so they tend to simply ad -s to the possessive cases and -self to the reflexive case: cat/cats/catself, fawn/fawns/fawnself and bun/buns/bunself are some of the most prominent examples, but you can find a more-or-less complete list of the insanity here.
As if polluting their Internet hugbox wasn't enough, social justice warriors have begun to insist that everyone, even non-trans or non-otherkin, should put their "preferred pronouns" in their blog descriptions. If you refuse to do this on the grounds that you're a boy and thus, naturally, use he/him/his, guess what? You're a transphobic shitlord, and he/him/his are not automatically masculine pronouns, you oppressive rapist. In cases when putting one's pronouns in a blog description won't work, snowflakes insist that everyone begin introductions to strangers with something like, "Hello, my name is Sarah. My pronouns are she, her and hers. What are your pronouns?" Yes, really.
Learn to speak Tumblrina today!
Think made up unconventional pronouns are impractical and impossible to use in normal English sentences? Well, practice, shitlord! Here is a website where you can insert Tumblr "pronouns" into regular sentences, practice all their different cases, and basically just learn to talk like a complete retard in order to avoid hurting special snowflakes' feelings. You might ask, if one's first language is meant to be natural and effortless to speak, why you would need to practice speaking it, as practicing a language is usually only reserved for very young children, mentally challenged people and people who are learning English as a second language. But, if you asked this, you'd be inciting violence, as questioning a snowflake's "pronouns" is an act of violence.
Of course, it's not just trans or non-binary people who "need" special pronouns. Otherkin need them too! After all, we don't call animals he, she or it, do we? No, we call them things like cat/cats/catself or dog/dogs/dogs. If your response to this is that, by replacing all nouns with pronouns derived from the nouns they're referring to, the entire purpose of pronouns is lost, you're just an uneducated asshole, and you need to re-educate yourself.
However, like you'd expect, the social justice warriors' sickening political correctness often bites them in the ass, and it can be employed to avoid using their moronic "pronouns." Simply tell them you're either learning English as a second language and are finding it difficult enough without all these made up words (don't word it like that though, or they'll get upset), or tell them you're too mentally challenged to use made up complex words. They will accept this without a second thought, because they have no choice. If they argue back, they're being ableist and/or racist, which is the last thing a Tumblr snowflake wants.
How to use nounself pronouns in a sentence
Normal: I met this guy the other day. God, he was such an asshole, so I punched him in the face.
Tumblr: I met this person the other day. God, ze was such an asshole, so I punched hir in the face.
Normal: If anyone has a problem with me, they should say it to my face, and I'll knock their teeth out for them.
Tumblr: If anyone has a problem with me, xe should say it to my face, and I'll knock xyr teeth out for xem.
Normal: I just saw a man walk into a bar and shoot up the place. Holy fuck, it was horrible. There were dying people everyone. One of them, an old lady, grabbed onto my leg and begged me to help her. But I was running for my life, and the shooter was right there and I knew he was going to shoot me, so I forced the old lady to let go of me. I... I kicked her in the fucking face! God, how she screamed! Then I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran. I knew if the crazed gunman caught me, he'd kill me. I knew there were other people in the bar who needed help, but I had to leave them too. How many kids are going to come home from school today and realize they don't have fathers or mothers anymore? How many?!
Tumblr: I just saw an individual of indeterminate gender walk into a bar and shoot up the place. Holy fuck, it was horrible. There were dying human-bodied individuals everyone. One of them, an old person of indeterminate gender, grabbed onto my leg and begged me to help quen. But I was running for my life, and the shooter was right there and I knew per was going to shoot me, so I forced the old person of indeterminate gender to let go of me. I... I kicked quen in the fucking face! God, how que screamed! Then I ran. I ran and I ran and I ran. I knew if the crazed gunindividual of indeterminate gender caught me, per'd kill me. I knew there were other people in the bar who needed help, but I had to leave them too. How many kids are going to come home from school today and realize they don't have fathers or mothers or non-binary individuals who don't feel comfortable identifying as either of those things for some reason anymore? How many?!
List of personal pronouns
He/him/his/his/himself: Used to refer to males.
She/her/her/hers/herself: Used to refer to objects like females and boats.
It/it/its/its/itself: Used to refer to animals and non-whites.
They/them/their/theirs/themselves: Apart from being the plural form for all of the above, "they" is also used to refer to people the speaker doesn't give a fuck about. Many idiots on tumblr demand to be referred to by this pronoun as well, but "it" is more suitable because, much like animals and non-whites, special snowflakes aren't people. The shitty indie game 2064: Read Only Memories by the underpay sex offender Matt Conn uses those pronouns in his game as a gender.
Ey/em/eir/eirs/emself: From "they," and an hilarious example of the lack of creativity of tumblrtards. The best part is that "them" is already shortened to "'em" in colloquial speech, meaning that "em" (the accusative case of "ey") would constantly be being confused with "'em" (the shortened accusative case of "they"). This is especially hilarious when you consider that these idiots' main "reason" for creating new pronouns is so there's no more ambiguity between the singular and plural "they," and "ey" will do nothing but create more confusion. This is exactly why people with IQs in the single digits should not try to mess around with language.
Ze/hir/hir/hirs/hirself: Supposedly from German. The "hir" is pronounced like "here," and it's just as difficult to use in a real sentence as it sounds. Used to refer to people on Tumblr, but nobody uses it in real life. Use "it" instead to refer to these people.
Xe/xem/xir/xirs/xirself: Used to refer to xenomorphs. The "xe" is pronounced exactly like the "ze" from above, but it's spelled differently for some reason.
Ne/nem/nir/nir/nirself: Used to refer to people in Tibet and Monty Python.
Thon/thon/thons/thons/thonself: Used to refer to made up things like Thor and non-binary people.
Jee/jem/jeir/jeirs/jemself: Used to refer to French "people" and gems.
Hu/hum/hus/hus/humself: From "human." Of course, to use this would be supporting the assumption that these fucktards are human, which they're not. Again, "it" is more preferable for such individuals.
Per/per/per/pers/perself: From "person." It suffers from same problems as above, namely that referring to these imbeciles as people is incorrect. Also has the added handicap of most of its cases being the same noise a fucking cat makes.
How to troll nounself pronoun-users
- Tell them their pronouns are impractical.
- Tell them their pronouns can't be used by retards or spics (be sure to use this exact language, for clarity).
- Tell them that normal people don't need to tell others what pronouns they need to use on them.
- Tell them that he/him/his are masculine and she/her/hers are feminine, and no amount of language-abuse and doublethink is going to change that.
- Tell them that they are raping the English language, with specific details on how they're forcing the language to submit against its will, holding it down as it begs for mercy, and violating it. Extra points if you can "trigger" anyone while doing this.
- Ask them if it would be possible to gather a group of twelve people, all of whom use different pronouns, and carry a sensible conversation between them wherein everyone remembered everyone else's pronouns, no one got confused and no one stumbled over their words. Then, point out that the fact that this wouldn't be possible is proof that nounself pronouns are impractical.
- Point out that language is meant to be about communication above everything else, which means that derailing conversations with talk of preferred pronouns is counterproductive to the very principle of language.
- Tell them that the only possible reason they would refuse to use the singular they instead of some made up pronouns is because they want to be special. For good measure, point out how incompetent they are in being unable even to agree to a single replacement for the singular they between them, which means that their reasoning, logic and planning skills must be piss-poor at best.
- When they try to spring the "all words are made up" excuse on you (and they will), point out that the problem isn't that their pronouns are made up, but that pronouns are classified as closed class and can rarely be modified. Punctuate this example by asking when was the last time a new preposition was invented. By this point, the social justice warrior should be drooling and staring vacantly out into space, as most of these people can't understand basic logic, let alone semi-complex linguistics.
- Link them to this video and tell them to go to about 19:18.
- Tell them your preferred pronouns are fuck/fucks/fuckself, and that they're misgendering you if they refuse to use them.
- Point out that there is no such thing as "gender-fluid" (a person whose gender apparently changes every other day), no matter what Tumblr has told them.
- Tell them that they wouldn't need to be making up all these pretend genders and pronouns if they didn't need to feel special, likely due to the fact that they have no outstanding skills, ideas or personality traits (bonus points if they more-or-less admit this by calling you "ableist" - as if despising people who will be nothing but a drain on society all their lives is somehow a bad thing).
- Tell them in a loud megaphone next to their ears that THERE ARE ONLY TWO FUCKING GENDERS.
Videos about nounself pronouns
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See also
- 2064: Read Only Memories
- BattleTech (video game)
- Bruce Jenner
- Chris-chan
- Deadname
- Galaxyprincet
- Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme
- Generation Z
- Gen Zed
- Hir
- Language
- Mass Effect: Andromeda
- Otherkin
- Oppression
- Shit no one cares about
- Social justice warriors
- Transgender
- Tumblr
- White people
External links
Canada schools axe "he" and "she" in favour of "xe"- Why Grammar Snobbery Has No Place in the Movement
- California Law Allows Jail For Using Wrong Gender Pronoun
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Personal pronouns is part of a series on Visit the Social Justice Portal for complete coverage. |
| Personal pronouns is part of a series on Language & Communication | |
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Languages and Dialects • Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling, Style, and Usage • Rhetorical Strategies • Poetry •
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| Featured article February 21 & 22, 2015 | ||
| Preceded by Pseudo-intellectual |
Personal pronouns | Succeeded by I Dislike Cis People |