WANTED-A PRONOUN | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 10, 1906

WANTED—A PRONOUN.

VOLUMINOUS as are the new dictionaries, they are not yet full enough. The need of a pronoun in the singular number which may be used for either gender, has become importunate, and they have done nothing to meet it. Thon has been suggested, but it is heavy and unwieldly. A recent writer in the Tribune sends the following pleasant bit of doggerel by way of argument in favor of the old Shakespearean pronoun, "ta," which, as will be seen, readily accommodates itself to case inflection:

With all the words e'er said or sung In this, our copious English tongue, One word is wanting that no wight Has ever skilled to hit aright, And plant it root-fast, as a daisy Among the crowds of posies mazy— Our vast vocabulary garden. The task is certainly a hard one. It must be curt, and apt, and trim, Mean he or she, mean her or him, Case, number, person clearly render, But undetermined leave the gender, Whoever such a word shall hit on, A simple, modest, living, fit one, Linked with its sisters, owned as proper, No acknowledged interloper. Ta will deserve a meed of fame, Honors will cluster 'round ta's name, And all shall long remember tan, Be it woman, or be it man.