Purchase this and other timeless New Criterion essays in our hard-copy reprint series. Philosophers of language spend a lot of time debating the ins and outs of the semantics of names. I am a linguist ...

Pronouns are what you use to address other people when you’re not using names. The most common pronouns are she/her/hers, they/them/theirs, and he/him/his. For many cisgender people — folks whose ...

A Guide To Pronouns explores various types of pronouns, including personal, possessive, and reflexive pronouns. This video ...

He’s my boss; her dog is cute; they have an exam today — pronouns are a part of speech we use to refer to ourselves and others. They’re an essential component of language — and, as of the last few ...

For that reason it requires a singular pronoun, his. In such contexts his has traditionally been taken as a gender-neutral pronoun encompassing both men and women. In Everyone wants his life to be ...

One of the first things a student learns when studying Mandarin is the third person pronoun, tā. This was originally written 他 , with “human” radical (a radical is a part of a Chinese character that ...

We toss around “he,” “she,” and “they” like they've always been part of the English language, but only one of them, the pronoun "he,” actually dates back to the earliest form of English. The others?

In honor of International Pronouns Day, one writer details their relationship with gender pronouns, why hearing “they” means so much to them, and the importance of using inclusive language, always.