eir en · DET
Pronunciation
- âr (General-American)
- /ɛɹ/ (General-American)
- âr (Received-Pronunciation)
- /ɛə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
Etymology
Coined by Christine M. Elverson by removing "th" from their.
Meanings
-
(nonstandard, rare) Belonging to em, gender-neutral third-person singular possessive adjective, equivalent to the singular their and coordinate with his and her.
If a mobile user is far from eir home area, ey will pay a long-distance fee for carriage of the call *from* eir home area, just as a caller would pay long-distance on a call *to* that area.
1997 November 25, Scott Robert Dawson, “Who Pays for Cellular Calls”, in alt.cellular (Usenet), message-ID <347acf56.333719@news.interlog.com>:A person whose habit is to stand and walk splay-footed may *think* eir feet are straight ahead, when they are actually pointed only slightly less out.
1996 December 22, Shirley Worth, “New To Yoga”, in alt.yoga (Usenet), message-ID <32BDCA0C.6C8@worth.org>:Eir sentences would sound smoother since ey wouldn’t clutter them with the old sexist pronouns. And if ey should trip up in the new usage, ey would only have emself to blame.
1975 August 23, Judie Black, “Ey has a word for it”, in Chicago Tribune, section 1, page 12:“You idiot girl! Are you childsick?” She grabbed Asu’s wrist; Asu made no effort to twist away. “Sand and soil, tell me you’re not pregnant. Is it that—what’s eir name? Aeran? Have you lain with em? Tell me!” […] Empre waded out to help them cross the last stretch. More people, a few hundred, perhaps, had gathered along the shore. One of them came running at Melu with a cry—she threw up her arms in defense. But it was Aeran, only Aeran. E seized Asu and clasped her close, eir eyes closed tightly as e sobbed eir relief.
2023, Aimee Ogden, “A Half-Remembered World”, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, vol. 145, no. 1-2, whole no. 768 (July/August 2023), pages 146-202And ultimately: I think my readers are mature enough that knowing eir assigned gender is not going to give them an “excuse” to misgender em.
2011 March 15, RJ Edwards, “#89: New Friend”, in Riot Nrrd, archived from the original on 30 May 2013:The adult worries much less; is cautious, sensible and knows how to protect emself and eir system from attack and error.
2004 March 31, Sue Thomas, Hello World : travels in virtuality, Raw Nerve Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 78: