0
MIG Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

how to keep the gender of a chracter unknown

i am trying to write the second part of my short story Emotion: indifferent.but i need to keep my character's gender secret.

i know two other language and both of them have a pronoun to point to the person(s) without revealing the gender.its weird that i cant do the same in English.

can i use it instead of she or he ?
  

Top answer

Use "they", "their" or "them".

— AlpheccaStars

  • Use "they", "their" or "them".
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

8 Answers
0
Use "they", "their" or "them".
0
0
Hi Alphecca Stars.
I don't understand.
I can use "they" for "she" ?
0
0
You can use the third-person plural pronoun when the person's gender is unknown or irrelevant. You cannot use "it" for a person, except sometimes for a tiny baby.
0
0
You cannot use "it". AStars's idea might work but be difficult to execute. Maybe you could write in the first person. Maybe you could give the person an androgynous name like "Avi" and use that instead of a pronoun when "they" seems wrong, or always use just their last name.
0
0
You could give your character a stage name that fits their personality, such as "the snitch" or "the wise one."
0
0
Thank you AlpheccaStars, BarbaraPA and enoon.


Tomorrow i will post here my first (modified) and second part of story.

It's cute , its about 15 lines altogether
0
0
MIG Tomorrow i will post here my first (modified) and second part of story.
Well?
0
0
Looking forward to it. My daughter wrote a novel once with a gender-ambiguous character who was generally referred to by their (ambiguous) name.
See, there's an example of using "their" as a gender-neutral singular. Some people object to this use, but it actually has a long and respected history. And "you" used to be strictly plural (with thee/thy as singular) and eventually became singul
0

Related Questions