Huh? A Pronoun That Goes Both Ways

By THOMAS BARTLETT

One of the annoying quirks of the English language is the lack of a gender-neutral third-person-singular pronoun. It forces writers to use stuffy alternatives like "one" or awkward constructions like "he or she."

Fortunately, D.N. DeLuna has a solution: Hu.

Yes, hu.

Ms. DeLuna teaches writing part time at the Johns Hopkins University and recently founded the Archangul Foundation to promote the usage of the gender-neutral, or epicene, pronoun. She is also the editor of The Political Imagination in History: Essays Concerning J.G.A. Pocock (Owlworks, 2006). It is, she says, the first book to make use of what she has dubbed "the Hopkins hu."

The Chronicle recently called hu to ask what this is all about:

Q. Why hu?

A. Brevity, for one thing. And it's a good middle ground: It's not "he" or "her" — it's "hu."

Q. Tell me how it's pronounced.

A. The Hopkins hu — it's h-u-h except with not as much aspiration as "huh." For instance, in the sentence "The liar is his own worst enemy," it's very easy: "The liar is hu own worst enemy."

Q. Huh. And I mean h-u-h.

A. This epicene is unique in that it can serve as subject, object, and possessive pronoun all at once. There's been a list that's been done by Dennis Baron in his book Grammar and Gender, and he lists the epicene neologisms that have been proposed since 1850. There have been just under 100 of them. "Hu" is far superior, by the way.

Q. You've recently started the Archangul Foundation to promote the use of "hu." Will you be taking on any other linguistic crusades?

A. After this, there's a project for that and which usage. It's a system I devised a while back, and it sort of mixes British usage and American usage in a way that is easy. I've not quite worked out all the hitches.

Q. Hitches with the whichs?

A. Right.

Q. Did contributors to your book hesitate at all about using "hu"?

A. Not at all. And there is in fact a great spectrum of political affinities, and they all put aside political issues, and they are very happy being progressive with the epicene pronoun. Now I'm sort of making categories about who needs to be apprised of the new epicene pronoun. Certainly the publishing world, the media, all writers, all English speakers, the educational world, the entertainment world, the world of high politics.

Q. Wow.

A. I'm bold in life, and this is probably the boldest thing I've entered into.

Q. It is pretty bold.

A. Thank you! I take that as a compliment.

THE EPICENE: 150 YEARS OF FAILURE

In his book Grammar and Gender, Dennis Baron, a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, chronicles the countless attempts at a gender-neutral personal pronoun. Here is a brief selection:

ne, nis, nim, hiser, ha, hez, hem, himorher, hes, hir, hem, his'n, her'n, heesh, shis, shim, shims, shimself, ho, hom, hos, homself, sheme, shis, shem, heshe, hisher, himmer, hesh, hizer, hirm, sheehy, sap, it, herm, e's, emself, em, ze, and zon

For a complete list, see Mr. Baron's Web site: http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm