ve
pronUS /vi/
Etymology First proposed by Philologus in the July 1864 Ladies' Repository, with possessive vis and objective vim, as an alternative to using "he or she," singular they, or one in sentences without a specified gender. In 1970, Varda One proposed ve, vis and objective ver in a feminist article titled "Manglish." Greg Egan used the pronouns throughout the novels Distress (1995) and Diaspora (1998).
1
Epicene, Nominative, Nonstandard, Rare, Third person Gender-neutral third-person singular subject pronoun, equivalent to singular they.
- And stop calling it 'it': yer got yer one great invention, remember Holmes? The neuter personal pronoun; ve/ver/vis, I am not his, vis/ve/ver, nor am I for her, ver/vis/ve, a pronoun for me, (slopping another tin of water out ready).[1984, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, reprint edition, New York: Penguin Books, published 1986, →ISBN, pages 425–426:
- Ve held up vis right hand; I reached down and took it, and began to haul ver up; ve shook vis head impatiently.1995, Greg Egan, Distress, reprint edition, London: Phoenix, published 1996, →ISBN, page 223:
1 more example
- Yatima felt distinctly stretched by the process—but vis symbols were still connected to each other in the same way as before. Ve was still verself.1997, Greg Egan, Diaspora, reprint edition, New York: HarperPrism, published 1998, →ISBN, page 52: