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Pronoun difficulties
So... I've gone and done it again I've created another odd characters.
This one is a rather eccentric alien doctor, named Vkkrxgd who shifts between referring to itself in first and third person. It's from a race of people, called the Dxjggrmtrx (I've purposely made both of those names unpronounceable), who are true hermaphrodites. With considerable deliberation I opted to refer to the good doctor as an 'it', but this has caused a few difficulties to crop up. In several parts of the story I depict the doctor manipulating medical instruments and that's where trouble started to crop up. Certain sentences have became confusing simply because I refer to both the doctor and the object as an 'it' in the same sentence.
This can be solved by rewording the sentences, BUT this issue keeps cropping up and it's driving me slighty mad. So... I'm going to ask the community. What do you think I should do? Should I use a gender specific pronouns (he or she) for Vkkrxgd? or should I continue using 'it' and keep having to reword the aforementioned sentences?
Or should I take a third route? Any of you gamers out there who are familiar with the final fantasy series are probably familiar with a character named Quina Quen. I'll explain for those that aren't familiar with the series. This particular character provides comic relief and it's never made clear whether this character is male or female. Throughout the game the other characters refer to Quina as he/she. I briefly contemplating doing this with Vkkrxgd, but I'm quite hesitant to take this route as I don't want to invite comparison between the two characters.
Or is there another option I'm overlooking? or am I over thinking it as usual?
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On a separate note for those that are interesting in such things... I crested 23,200 words today and I would have a much higher word count if I hadn't decided to rewrite a rather large chunk (well about 5000 words anyway) of the story.
Comments
For the purposes of this story,
Try 'shhe'.
Make up new pronouns.
Or even borrow ones from one of our other languages that actually have them! Yes! SOME Earth languages actually have gender-neuter pronouns!
One I can think of right away is Japanese... You could have your character mention something about the nearest approximation to a means of reference to themselves in a language that humans understand would be... and use a Japanese pronoun. I assure you that's what the ORIGINAL Quina was referred as. Though considering the character, probably one of the two derogatory ones. (There's several, actually)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns#List_of_Japan...
Scroll down a little to see the ones for "he/she".
Note that in Japanese, they would ACTUALLY be very very unlikely to use kare or kanojo outside of referring specifically to boyfriend/girlfriend type relationships. They would be much more likely to use "they" or "he/she".
Abigail Drew.
new pronoun
Very simple. Create a new pronoun that is distinct from he or she. I would go with Xe ---(Chee, almost like the greek x (chi)
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
maybe....
Some I have seen used In SciFi settings:
(s)he, s/he, ze, one(as oposed to it), hir(Her / Him)
Antipronouns
Give Vkkrxgd an even more stylistic form of expression and never use any pronouns to refer to Vkkrxgd. Vkkrxgd will just consistently call Vkkrxgd's self "Vkkrxgd" even when Vkkrxgd is not narrating the story.
Sci Fi
I've read in some Sci-Fi stories (not fantasy, Science Fiction) where a race has evolved such that normal binary references do not apply. In such cases it is generally agreed that the aliens are assigned a 'sex' to make pronoun usages easier. I'm thinking in particular of some of David Weber's stories like "In Fury Born". The sex assigned may have no meaning to the aliens reproductive system, it is done entirely for the convenience of poor binary species such as H. Sapiens.
The usage is generally explained when meeting these other species, something like "Tom was careful to address the aliens as "Mister", even though nobody had any idea what reproductive methods they had evolved. Still, the Bezippiens understood that the terms used by the Alliance dated back to the time on Ancient Earth when such pronouns referred to the dominant sex and insisted they be referred that way." At that point you are free to use whatever set of pronouns you have decided on. Needn't be male pronouns either, one species in the novel were always referred to by the female pronouns and became highly offended if somebody used the male pronouns when speaking to them.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
IT or It or it
Since Vkkrxgd is a person, you can use, either IT or It (capital letter combination, since if you used the name the first letter would be Capitalized) for the person and it for objects. Simple solution with out the need to create new pronouns, etc.
RAMI
RAMI
New pronoun
I agree with Abagail and Katie Leone - try a new gender-neutral pronoun. I use both ce, cim, cis, cimself (pronounced as si, the spelling is to avoid confusion with Spanish) and ze, zir, zis, zirself for gender-neutral and sexually ambiguous respectively in my private universe descriptions. It definitely helps shift my unconscious biases - score one for Saphir-Whorf (at least the medium intepretations.) The latter has shown up in a story that includes a she-male.
Epicine pronouns haven't caught on, possibly because there are a huge number of proposals, all of which have flaws - at least according to the people pushing other proposals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun also: http://longstoryshortpier.com/2004/03/01/sexing_the_pronoun which links to the FAQ.
The standard solution (how boring) is to use they in the singular. These days, the only people who object are surly old curmudgeons (and there seem to be more of them each day.)
Xaltatun
Creat a new pronoun.
Try creating a completely new pronoun something like 'fe'.
English is constantly adding new words and they originate sometimes from the most bizarre and unexpected sources. Why can't your story be yet another source?
Don't be shy.
Bevs.
XX
Thanks all
THanks everyone for the responses! At that moment I'm strongly leaning towards just making up a pronoun.
Have delightfully devious day,
I Think Many Know
The gender neutral pronouns I use, but I couldn't help but put my 2 cents in. I use he, she, E; him, her, er; and his, hers, ers.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee