Posted on 08/01/2025 5:53:18 AM PDT by DallasBiff
Human relationships are so easy, why shouldn’t the words for them be just as simple? English has words for numerous family relationships but, unfortunately for us, most of them are gendered. To solve this, we created a list of gender-neutral relationship terms (words and phrases) covering all major cases and based on Universal English. Some of these gender-neutral family terms will sound awesome, some won’t resonate at all but, as always, we’re open to suggestions. If you have better ideas, let me know.
Gender-Neutral Relationship Words
To a greater extent than other lists, I’ve included many suggested neutral (plain text) and Q/NB options (italics). This is largely to show the effort that has gone into finding or creating neutral terms, and the creativity that can be applied in a dynamic language. It also lets you see the difference between Universal English and other (less consistent but still valid) options.
This table is sorted by group, rather than alphabetically. Pair ordering follows the common convention of listing women first in most cases (e.g., mother and father, not father and mother).
Mother / Father
Huther or Parent
(Excerpt) Read more at universalenglish.org ...
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What's a "huther"?
Helicopter parent...
huthering
People will be ice skating in Hell before I start using these terms.
> If you have better ideas, let me know. <
Actually, I do. The author should stop with this nonsense and get a real job.
Nonsense like this is just one of the many reasons why Trump dominated last November. Crummy economy, a wide-open southern border, woke politics; the Dims just can’t get wise to themselves.
And, yeah, what’s a “huther”?
“That bitch has a dick”
Good old plain English language
These people need a boot camp to straigten out their priorities. With this insanity, they will never achieve anything positive, and are relegated to a miserable life of uncertainty about everything.
He is an actor, and since he goes by his stage name, I assume he is trying to revive an dead career. From Wiki: “Actor Sean Blakemore, known for his small roles on soap operas such as Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless,[3] originated the role of Shawn Butler on January 24, 2011, on a recurring basis”. It is a pathetic attempt to revive a career in Hollywood. He thinks he had folloers on the Soap Operas, so it is evidence that he is mentally challenged (Crazy runs strong in this one).
SMH
A good story for a change:
My wife is a communications person for a health system. Over the past few years she has written stories about their breast feeding clinic winning awards. During that time the home office tried to force the term, “Breast feeding person” in the stories. She would replace it with “mother” when she re-wrote the story.
Yesterday, for the first time in ages, they referred to “mothers” in a story.
I guess its the small victories that we should embrace.
Gibberish
Yes, we should embrace small victories like that as steps in the right direction.
I’ve heard some of these awkward terms. Such as, talking about pregnant persons, and specifically avoiding saying pregnant women. And the reason for that is because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of the one in a million women, who might identify as a man , who could be pregnant.
I know it’s laughable to us, but there are people who take this stuff seriously.
I fail to see the problem.
whois query on this domain namesA cursory look to his various blog pages shows few comments, and many are "0 comments." Turns out he runs another blog, about his "writing career."Registered On: 2024-10-24
Registrar: Tucows Domains Inc.
Registrant Privacy: Contact Privacy Inc. [ Canada ]
But---- Note this fellow's legal game [ from the website ] ---
" 'Universal Gender-Neutral English', 'Universal English' and 'UGNE' are trademarks of Shawn C. Butler, the founder of Universal English."
The very simple reality of trademark registration is that an owner of a trademark can sue another for using it. The assertion of owning this trademark seems dubious. Another tried to trademark the simple phrase, "universal english," and it was canceled in 2008. Source: "UNIVERAL ENGLISH" trademark cancellation
The notion is not so new, anyway, as the UN has been pushing this. Source: Gender-inclusive language guidelines(English) Promoting gender equality through the use of language UN women
Shawn C. Butler's blogs seem underwhelming. But he wants to sell you his fiction. Literally.
The whole thing is stupid, as so many languages are fully "gendered" as to declension of nouns and pronouns, to include having verb forms and adjectives agree within phrases and clauses with a particular gender. One of only two, for most. Three for some, as with German. None with "they/them" pronoun BS or "huther."
I looked at the author’s list of preferred terms. I have NO idea why he crossed out “meterologist” for “weatherman”,
I also saw that he suggested the word “server” for waiter or waitress.
Does he not know that the word “server” comes from the Latin “servus”, which means “slave”? Use of that term by his way of thinking is FAR more demeaning than simply acknowledging the sex of the person waiting on you.
English, French, Spanish, German . . . all the Indo-European languages have the sex binary plus a neuter informing essential parts of diction and grammar. To be true to his mission, the author would have to start from scratch. Even Esperanto cribs from pre-existing words and structures.
English has 600,000 words. Good luck.
I wish I cared enough about the topic to read the article. It sounds hilarious.
I just asked my AI if there’s a language with only one word for both mother and father. The answer showed that there are no non-artificial languages that do that. So it’s abnormal and unnatural to eliminate the distinction between mother and father.
Good reply. 👍
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