His is harder to write on than you think!

I am shooting myself in the foot for choosing this word. I need feedback! If it isnt up to par I need to just change my word! So let me know!


Imagine a world without gender markers, where everything was ambiguous. In the midst of a casual conversation and unable to tell if the person talking is dating a guy or a girl, a world without these markers could make conversation much less meaningful. Looking back on the evolution of the English language one can see how it has went from a language with gender for many of its objects to a language where only one gender was used, and back to a language that uses gender markers but no specific genders for inanimate objects.


One example of a word that marks gender now is “his,” the word was originally used in c1000 to describe a male and in a1200 in the 3rd person singular feminine. The word in both senses has followed a noun showing possession. The Oxford English Dictionary has the following definitions for the word, “1. as gen. case of pers. pron.: a. masc. Of him; of the male being or thing in question, L. ejus; b. neut. of it; c. refl. of himself, of itself, L. sui.” In the feminine sense it has the word defined as, “it; refl. Herself.” As well as yet another definition of the word meaning them, this is now obsolete. (Oxford English Dictionary)


The word now has taken its place in a modern dictionary, the Wikipedia definition of “his” is “a gender-specific pronoun, the possessive form of he” (Wikipedia) This has grown to be accepted, and I feel that it is a great definition. I think it is irrelevant to have only one word pointing to the masculine, feminine, and plural forms. Which “his” historically did, but I still feel that the English language should have stayed a little more closely related to the other European languages.


Another use past use of “his” was to means its, where an inanimate object posses another object. This is not something that is very common in language today nor was it very common in language in the past. This is most likely the reason why the word “its” was not in existence. The language then evolved and needed a word that pointed to a possessed object of an inanimate object. (Yahoo Answers)


“His” has been on a long roller coaster ride of transformation and has seen everything from biblical times where it was used to point to a possessing male or female. To where the language just needed a quick reference to a female. Then we entered into a time where women decided to fight for their rights and it seen some harsh times there. “His” has had a front row seat in the battle of the sexes, and has evolved over time to point to only the male gender. The last time the word was used in describing a female was in 1340, however the battles over women’s rights were far from over. The change in the use of the word merely implied that now we needed a way to refer in short to women. This need marked the first in a series of gains for women.


The word however not only stopped pointing to women but to the plural as well. This is where English took a turn from the format of other languages. Where in many of the other popular languages you have masculine and feminine beginning and endings attached to almost every word. Like in many other languages the word for his or her is also used in the plural sense and the word for his trumps the word for hers if there is just one male included in the group being discussed. This is where English began taking on its own form, and words began to lose gender.


Today we still assign gender to certain things, usually to things that is stereotyped as being a girly or a masculine thing. Such as a cat, when saying the cat owns something, we find ourselves saying her, or she. Especially if we do not know the sex of the cat off hand. The exact opposite with a dog, which is predominantly referred to as he or his. This is because of a preset notion in our brain that says cats are girls and dogs are males. We do this with many different words in the English language.


This is where I feel the fork should be stuck firmly into the road, and we should have to make a choice. This is also why the English language is so hard to learn. I do not think that certain words deserve to have gender if other words do not. If you were to show anyone born in the past five generations a document referring to a female as his, they would call attention to it and say it is a typo or a mistake. Unaware of the history of the word not knowing that that the word used to be used interchangeably.


The correct definition of the word “his” would be used in all necessary places of a masculine noun. The word would be used even to describe possession of an inanimate object as long as the object were masculine. The word “her” would co-exist and be the feminine counterpart. The English language should have kept gender markers on every word. I know the English language cannot completely change overnight but it does upset me that we go totally askew in the aspects of language and measurement from every other major language. This not only would make our language easier to learn, and make the concepts of other languages easier for us to learn, but make more sense for everyone.


This is the best definition of the word because it not only splits and makes masculine and feminine two separate things with quick indicators such as the gender markers, but it also keeps it fair to women. Beyond that is assimilates us into following other language rules followed around the world. Should we continue to use gender markers for only certain objects and certain situations? No, this makes it unfair and we are stereotyping what should or should not be a certain gender. Also it confuses the hell out of other people trying to learn the English language.