this is a writeup on the format folks use to state their pronouns, as in she/her. i'm writing about it to tell you how it works, and because i find the syntax fascinating.
this document may be useful if:
let's get started!
english personal pronouns have five forms. here's all of them, using they/them as an example because its forms are all distinct:
| form | example | notes |
|---|---|---|
| subject (also called: nominative, subjective) |
they went fishing with me. they're telling me how they feel. |
|
| object (accusative, oblique, objective) |
i baked them a cake. i played chess with them. i like them. |
|
| determiner (possessive, possessive adjective) |
their hamster is so cute. i took their dog for a walk. |
technically not a pronoun, but a determiner. however it doesn't really make sense to not group it with these other words it is so similar to. |
| genitive (possessive) |
those cookies are theirs. don't you dare touch them! | semi-uncommon. not to be confused with the determiner form above. |
| reflexive | they cooked themself dinner. they took a picture of themselves. |
themself and themselves are in free variation. most pronouns besides they use a form ending in -self. |
not all pronouns have five distinct forms! some of them may be merged (identical) for some pronouns, like i passed her her fishing rod. this will be important later.
pronouns are usually given as two forms separated by slashes. most commonly, that's the subject and object forms: he/him, she/her.
a notable exception is it/its, which uses the determiner in place of the object. this is probably done to avoid repeating the word it.
similarly, nounself and emojiself pronouns are usually given as subject/reflexive (bun/bunself, 🌟︎/🌟︎self) probably because the other forms are so similar.
when spoken aloud, stress tends to fall on the last pronoun (he/him is pronounced he-him, not he-him). the forms are usually in lowercase, but they can be capitalized with no change in meaning: She/Her.
occasionally, someone may give a third form, as in they/them/theirs. what form is used as a third form? well, there's usually a preference for keeping the forms unique, so she/her/hers is more common than she/her/her.
if someone uses multiple pronoun sets, it's usual to give just one form from each set, usually the subject form. he/they, it/she/fae and so on.
the order of the pronouns may be relevant here? i've heard from some folks that the order indicates preference, with the pronouns further to the right dispreferred. i've also heard folks say you should use all pronouns equally, or that you should pick one and stick with it. since preferences vary so much, it's best to ask if you can.
lastly, if someone has exactly two sets, the latter may be listed in object form by analogy with the single-pronoun syntax. so e.g. they/her is not unheard of.
…are usually listed as such (i.e. no pronouns and any pronouns). any pronouns is also written any/all sometimes, which i find so charming! no these are not the subject and object form of anyone's neopronouns, they're just written in the word/word format for recognizability! it's very silly. i sadly have to report that the equivalent of no/none doesn't seem to exist.
well actually…both any and none can be combined with other pronouns, as any/she (any with a preference for she/her) and he/they/none (he/they or no pronouns). and look, there's that no/none syntax! it just doesn't exist standalone, only in combination with another pronoun.
there are also some things that aren't stating pronouns but still use the word/word syntax:
some folks who're discontent with the concept of pronouns and like, trans people existing i guess, will express this discontent with a pronoun set like fuck/you. this is an ingenious parody of like, he/they or whatever, and is sure to get everybody's goat. the best way to counteract it, of course, is to take the set literally: interpret it as fuck/you and use fuck and you as neopronouns to talk about them.
they/them also has some currency as a noun meaning "nonbinary person". according to the wiktionary page i just linked, the usage varies from "self-descriptor" to "reductive and offensive".
are you still with me? if yes, there's one final thing i want to show you:
a set like fae/faer only tells you the first two forms, so what do you do?
well, let's see what our missing forms look like for the standard pronouns:
note how the determiners all end in -r or -s. and the genitives are just the determiners with an extra -s slapped on. and the reflexive forms, if you ignore the -self ending for a bit, are all identical to the object forms.
the trick is that these rules also apply to neopronouns!…for the most part, anyway.
let's swap out faer's final consonant for an R (i.e. change nothing), that gets us faer for a determiner. add an S, and the genitive is faers. and the reflexive joins faer with -self to arrive at faerself.
now, these rules aren't bulletproof. xe/xem takes the determiner xyr, with an unpredictable change of written vowel. there's also no way to tell if the determiner will end in -s or -r. still, the rules apply to most of the pronouns on pronouns.page, and i think it's really cool that (neo-)pronoun inflection is consistent enough to let you form a strategy like this in the first place.