"hur": the new 3rd (and 2nd) person neutral pronoun!

[Wilson Gray]

Ben writes:

"Perhaps it just needs to be reintroduced a few more times before it
catches on!"

Is this a call for activism or is it merely irony?

-Wilson

On Jan 23, 2008 1:05 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "hur": the new 3rd (and 2nd) person neutral pronoun!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There is a feminine use of "hur" in the first "hur" of the following (1784):
>
> A Welshman, lying in an ale-house, had run up a great deal for
> cheese; his hostess therefore demanded a shilling. "How the devil,
> cuds splutter-a-nails, can that be?" said he. "Why, look here," said
> she, pointing to the score behind the door. "Ah! that's brave indeed,
> said he, what doth hur think, hur doth not know chalk from cheese?"
>
> [That is, "what does *she* think, I do not know chalk from cheese".]
>
> And a second person singular use in (also 1784):
>
> A Welsh drover, coming through Oxford, asked his companion, what
> out-landish people they were, which he saw walking on the parade
> before St. Mary's Church? The other, who was a sage in his own
> country, said, "Cot's hart! cannot hur see, they are parsons 'prentices."
>
> [That is, "cannot you see".]
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/23/2008 12:23 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >If the Welsh "hur" turns out to have been also used to refer to
> >females, we have another candidate.  :-)
> >
> >Joel
> >
> >At 1/23/2008 11:07 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> >>On Dennis Barron's comprehensive list of suggested epicene pronouns,
> >>"e" or "E" is listed as being proposed in 1890, 1977, 1978, 1982,
> >>1988, and 1989:
> >>
> >>http://www.english.uiuc.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm
> >>
> >>Perhaps it just needs to be reintroduced a few more times before it
> >>catches on!
> >>
> >>--Ben
> >
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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