hirs

hirs
 pron.— «For those who are not familiar with ze/hir, it is used rather than she/her or he/him/his for some people who identify outside of a man/woman dichotomy. Like he and she, ze has several forms that are not particularly easy for the average person to classify grammatically (he, she, ze; his, her, hir; him, her, hir; his, hers, hirs; himself, herself, hirself), but anyone who can use she and he is capable of integrating ze.» —“Ze/hir pronouns represent future in spite of linguistic conservatism” by Pira Kelly in University of Oregon Oregon Daily Emerald (Eugene) May 12, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

Word-Peckers

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a word-pecker is “a person who trifles or plays with, or quibbles over, words.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Word-Peckers” I always love it when I’m looking through the dictionary and...

Buttons on Ice Cream (episode #1678)

How do dictionaries define colors? And why are some of those definitions so confusing, like “stronger than carmine” and “bluer than fiesta”? Dictionary editor Kory Stamper explains it all in her new book. Plus, the story behind the expression more...

Recent posts