Ey/Em
Ey/em is they/them with the th dropped: ey went, I saw em, eir book, it is eirs, ey did it emself.
- ey
- em
- eir
- eirs
Said: ay / em / air
The forms
| Subject | eyey is here |
|---|---|
| Object | emI saw em |
| Possessive | eireir book |
| Possessive (standing alone) | eirsthat is eirs |
| Reflexive | emselfby emself |
In a sentence
What it is
Ey/em is the easiest neopronoun to learn if you already use singular they, because it is singular they with the front knocked off. Ey, em, eir, eirs, emself. Say "ay", "em", "air".
The set is also called the Elverson pronouns, and it is close kin to the Spivak set (e/em/eir), which drops one letter more. People pick ey/em because it is unmistakably singular and unmistakably not he or she.
How to use it
- Singular verbs: ey is, ey was. "Ey are" is the one habit to unlearn if you come from they/them.
- Em is the object: I called em. The reflexive is emself, not "emselves".
- Eir before a noun, eirs standing alone. The same split as their and theirs.
- Ey/em and e/em are cousins, not the same set. If someone writes e/em, use e as the subject; if ey/em, use ey.
- Said aloud, ey is "ay". Wikipedia's Spivak article notes the ey spelling was preferred partly because e on its own can sound like he in fast speech.
Getting used to it
- Take any sentence with they and them in it about one person and drop the th. Do ten. It is mechanical, which is the point.
- Say the three sounds together: ay, em, air. Then use all three in one sentence about the person while you are alone.
- Add ey, em, eir and eirs to your keyboard dictionary so autocorrect stops turning em into me.
Who uses this
Ey/Em comes up on eight pages in the library.
That is all this list is. No identity requires a pronoun set, and most imply nothing about pronouns at all.
Transgender 1 entry
Agender 4 entries
Xenogender 1 entry
Where it comes from
On record. Wikipedia's article on Spivak pronouns and Wiktionary both credit Christine M. Elverson of Skokie, Illinois, who created ey, em and eir in 1975 for a contest run by the Chicago Association of Business Communicators to find replacements for he-and-she. The forms come from dropping the th from they, them and their.
Questions people ask
Is ey/em the same as the Spivak pronouns?
Nearly. The Spivak set is e/em/eir/eirs/emself; Elverson's is ey/em/eir/eirs/emself. Only the subject differs. Ey/em came first, in 1975; Michael Spivak used his version in a typesetting manual in the 1980s.
Why not just use they?
Some people use both. Others want a word that is only ever singular and is not shared with the crowd. Ey/em gives them a pronoun that cannot be misread as plural or as a dodge.
Other sets
Pronouns are one part of it
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Pronouns are a request about language, not a claim about anyone else. Using someone’s pronouns costs nothing and says a lot.