Gender is no longer an inflectional category in
Modern English. Traces of the Old English gender system are found in the system of pronouns. Nonetheless, Modern English assumes a "natural" interpretation of gender affiliation, which is based on the
sex, or perceived sexual characteristics, of the pronoun's
referent. Exceptions to this generality are few and debatable, for example
anaphoric she referring to ships, machines, and countries Linguist
Robert A. Hall Jr. argued that these are simply examples of
natural gender and not
grammatical gender, as daughters are always female and people named Jane are overwhelmingly likely to be female. Moreover, if a person named Jane is a man, there is nothing grammatically incorrect with saying "Jane is bringing his friends over."
Personal pronouns The third-person singular
personal pronouns are chosen according to the natural gender of their
antecedent or
referent. As a general rule: •
he (and its related forms
him,
himself,
his) is used when the referent is male, or something to which male characteristics are attributed; •
she (and
her,
herself,
hers) is used when the referent is female, or is an object personified as female
It is also used in the interrogative for people in some phrases such as, "Who is it?". Pronoun agreement is generally with the natural gender of the referent (the person or thing denoted) rather than simply the antecedent (a noun or
noun phrase which the pronoun replaces). For example, one might say either
the doctor and his patients or
the doctor and her patients, depending on one's knowledge or assumptions about the sex of the doctor in question, as the phrase
the doctor (the antecedent) does not itself have any specific natural gender. Also, pronouns are sometimes used without any explicit antecedent. However, as described above (the example with
child and
daughter), the choice of pronoun may also be affected by the particular noun used in the antecedent. (When the antecedent is a collective noun, such as
family or
team, and the pronoun refers to the members of the group denoted rather than the group as a single entity, a
plural pronoun may be chosen: compare
the family and its origins;
the family and their breakfast-time arguments. See also
synesis.) When the referent is a person of unknown or unspecified sex, several different options are possible: • use of
he or she,
he/she,
s/he and
(s)he • alternation or random mixture of
she and
he • use of
singular they (common especially in informal language) • use of
it (normally only considered when the referent is a young child) • use of
generic he (traditional, but not recommended by modern grammars)
Animals In principle, animals are triple-gender nouns, being able to take masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns. However, animals viewed as less important to humans, also known as ‘lower animals’, are generally referred to using
it; higher (domestic) animals may more often be referred to using
he and
she, when their sex is known. If the sex of the animal is not known, the masculine pronoun is often used with a sex-neutral meaning. This
personification of objects is usually done for poetic effect or to show strong emotional attachment. One common use of metaphorical gender is referring to named ships as
she. This is the case even for ships named after men, such as
HMS King George V; otherwise, the gender of inanimate objects with proper names tends to match the gender connotation of the name. The origins of this practice are not certain, and it is currently in decline and sometimes considered offensive. In modern English it is advised against by
The Chicago Manual of Style,
New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, and
The Associated Press Stylebook. The
Cambridge Dictionary considers the practice "old-fashioned". The
Oxford English Dictionary dates written examples of calling ships
she to at least 1308 (in the
Middle English period), in materials translated from French, which has
grammatical gender. One modern source claims that ships were treated as masculine in early English, and that this changed to feminine by the sixteenth century. In the 1640
English Grammar, author Ben Jonson unambiguously documents the neuter gender "under which are comprised all
inanimate things, a
ship excepted: of whom we say
she sails well, though the name be Hercules, or Henry, or the Prince." Various folk theories on the origin include the tradition of naming of ships after
goddesses, well-known women, female family members or objects of affection (though ships have male and non-personal names), the tradition of having a female
figurehead on the front of the ship (though men and animals are also used as figureheads),
ship sponsors (generally held by women by tradition) and various justifications (many satirical) comparing the attributes of ships with women.
She is also sometimes used as an alternative to
it for countries, when viewed as political entities.
Transgender and non-binary people Chosen pronouns are an element of
gender expression. Many
transgender people use the standard pronouns (
he,
she, etc.) that match their
gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth. Referring to transgender people using natural gender pronouns according to their sex deduced at birth, known as
misgendering, is harmful and can be perceived as an insult or intentional offense if done deliberately, and embarrassing or hurtful if done accidentally. Many people with a
non-binary gender identity use the
singular they. Others accept
he and/or
she, alternate between
he and
she, use any pronouns, or prefer gender-neutral pronouns (neopronouns) such as xe/xem or
zie.
Other pronouns Other English pronouns are not subject to male/female distinctions, although in some cases a distinction between
animate and inanimate referents is made. For example, the word
who (as an
interrogative or
relative pronoun) refers to a person or people, and rarely to animals (although the possessive form
whose can be used as a relative pronoun even when the antecedent is inanimate), while
which and
what refer to inanimate things (and non-human animals). Since these pronouns function on a binary gender system, distinguishing only between animate and inanimate entities, this suggests that English has a second gender system which contrasts with the primary gender system. Many words in modern English refer specifically to people or animals of a particular sex. An example of an English word that has retained gender-specific spellings is the noun-form of
blond/blonde, with the former being masculine and the latter being feminine. This distinction is retained primarily in British English.
Words that retain their gender-related spellings Certain words' spellings are indicative of their original grammatical genders, which may not correspond to their natural genders, for example
abscissa, which is derived from a Latin feminine word. Certain foreign expressions used in English exhibit distinctions of grammatical gender, for example
tabula rasa. Certain gender-indicative suffixes denoting humans eliminate any practical distinction between natural gender and grammatical gender (examples:
-ess as in
hostess,
waitress, or
stewardess; and
-trix as in
executrix or
dominatrix). Some gender-related suffixes are almost never perceived as related to grammatical gender, for example
-itis, a suffix meaning inflammation, which is derived from Greek feminines. Many words that retain their feminine endings refer to geographical regions (for example
Africa) and stars (for example
lucida).
Regional variations Speakers of
West Country English may use masculine (rather than neuter) pronouns with non-animate referents, as can be seen in
Thomas Hardy's works. A similar case is found in
Newfoundland English. Harold Paddock observed the following in 1981: Nouns seem to possess a well defined but covert system of grammatical gender. We may call a noun
masculine,
feminine or
neuter depending on the pronouns which it selects in the singular.
Mass or non-count nouns (such as
frost,
fog,
water,
love) are called
neuter because they select the pronoun
it.
Count nouns divide into
masculine and
feminine. Female humans and most female animals, as well as all types of vehicles (land, air and sea) are
feminine, in that they select the pronouns
she,
her. Other count nouns are masculine in that they select the pronouns
he, '
en. Examples of "masculine" nouns in Newfoundland English are
hat,
shovel,
book, and
pencil; "feminine" are
boat,
aeroplane; "neuter" nouns include
water,
fog,
weather, and
snow. ==Gender neutrality in English==