Per/Pers
Per/pers is short for person: per is the subject and object, pers the possessive, perself the reflexive. A novelist made it famous.
- per
- per
- pers
- pers
Said: pur / pur / purz / purz / pur-SELF
The forms
| Subject | perper is here |
|---|---|
| Object | perI saw per |
| Possessive | perspers book |
| Possessive (standing alone) | persthat is pers |
| Reflexive | perselfby perself |
In a sentence
What it is
Per is a clipped person, and it is one of the simplest sets to learn because there are only three words in it. Per is both the subject and the object; pers is the possessive in both positions; perself is the reflexive. "Per said per would bring pers own." That is the whole grammar.
The set is best known from Marge Piercy's novel Woman on the Edge of Time, where the people of a future society use per as their only third-person pronoun. Outside fiction it has a small, steady following, partly because it wears its meaning on its face: per is a person, and that is the point being made.
How to use it
- Per takes the singular verb: "per is", "per has", "per was".
- Per is the object as well as the subject: "I saw per", "give it to per". There is no separate object word, which feels wrong for a day and then does not.
- Pers is the possessive in both positions: "pers coat" and "the coat is pers". Some people write per as the determiner ("per coat"); if the person's bio says per/per, follow that.
- Say per to rhyme with her, pers with hers. Perself is per plus self. Nobody stumbles on the sound; they stumble on the repetition, which is normal.
- The word per also means "for each" in ordinary English. "Per said per was late" reads cleanly in context; if a sentence goes ambiguous, use the name.
Getting used to it
- Say it as a row: per, per, pers, pers, perself. It is the shortest row on this site. Three sounds.
- Write a sentence where per is the object: "I texted per." People find the subject easy and the object strange, so practise the strange one.
- Use it for a character while you read something. A chapter's worth of sentences beats an hour of thinking about it.
Where it comes from
Partly on record. Marge Piercy used per, from person, as the single third-person pronoun of a future society in Woman on the Edge of Time, published in 1976; Wiktionary credits her with the coinage. Pronouns.page records an earlier proposal by John Clark in a 1972 newsletter of the American Anthropological Association. Neither record settles which came first, so take Piercy as the reason people know it rather than as the proven origin.
Questions people ask
Is the possessive per or pers?
Both are in use. Wiktionary and Wikipedia's table give pers as the possessive determiner ("pers coat"); Pronouns.page lists per/per with per as the determiner and pers only as the standalone form. Ask the person, and if you cannot, pers in both positions is the form on this page and will be understood.
Did Marge Piercy invent per?
She is the reason it is known, and Wiktionary credits her with the coinage in Woman on the Edge of Time. Pronouns.page records a 1972 proposal by John Clark, four years before the novel. Two references, two stories, no reconciliation on record. This page says so rather than picking one.
Other sets
Pronouns are one part of it
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