Executive summary: This brief essay discusses a few aspects of English grammar and a few aspects of American constitutional rights (or absence thereof). It is not intended to be comprehensive, nor is it intended to be prescriptive. What you think of it is your choice.
In any language, "grammar" is the set of rules that prescribe how words (the fundamental unit of communication, whether written or spoken) are combined together to convey meaning. Those rules can apply to such things as word order, definitions of parts of speech, usage-dependent inflections, tenses of verbs, pronunciation, etc. Syntax is one of the components of grammar. The English language is non-agglutinative and very nearly non-inflected, though its syntax can be quite complex.
The grammar of the English language has many different parts of speech, only a few of which will be discussed here — nouns, adjectives and pronouns. The concepts of biological gender and grammatical gender are relevant to this discussion.
Unlike many other languages (e.g., Latin), English words do not have grammatical gender. (See End Note 2, below.) Nevertheless, biological gender is explicitly included in the definitions of some nouns that relate to living species that reproduce sexually. For example, the common noun "deer" refers to a certain category of four-legged mammals, while "buck" refers to an adult male member of that category and "doe" refers to an adult female member of that category. Similarly, "person" identifies a human being of unspecified gender, while "man" identifies an adult male person and "woman" identifies an adult female person. ("Boy" and "girl" identify the corresponding juvenile persons.) For nouns that do not imply a biological gender, one can nevertheless be specified by the use of an appropriate adjective, as has been done in this paragraph.
In the grammar of the English language, a noun is a word that identifies a person, place or thing. Nouns come in two flavors — a common noun identifies a generic category of persons, places or things, while a proper noun is the given name of a specific person, place or thing. For example, any of the common nouns "man," "human" or "person" could be used to categorize accurately the author of this essay, while any of the proper nouns "Carl," "Scott" or "Zimmerman" could be used (individually or in combination) to identify this author as a specific member of those categories.
In the grammar of the English language, an adjective is a word that describes a person, place or thing. The adjective "masculine" refers to qualities or characteristics that are generally considered to be typical of a male creature (usually a person). The adjective "feminine" refers to qualities or characteristics that are generally considered to be typical of a female creature (usually a person). A quality or characteristic of a person, place or thing that is described by an adjective may be either objective (i.e., factually verifiable) or subjective (i.e., based on a personal opinion, perception or belief). For example, a person's gender is factually verifiable by any independent witness using biological methods (even after the person is dead, so long as the corpse exists), while a person's religion is not.
In the grammar of the English language, a pronoun is a short word that "stands for" (i.e., can be substituted for) a common noun or a proper noun. Pronouns also provide very nearly the only way to distinguish between the person who is speaking or writing a sentence (the "first person") and the person who is hearing or reading it (the "second person"), while referring to someone who is neither of those (a "third person"). First, second and third person pronouns may be either singular or plural, depending on whether they refer to a single individual or a group of individuals, and they can be summarized in the following table:
| Pronouns | Possessive adjectives | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| First person | I / me | we / us | my / mine | our / ours |
| Second person | you / you | you / you | your / yours | your / yours |
| Third person male | he / him | his / his | ||
| Third person female | she / her | her / hers | ||
| Third person generic | it / it | they / them | its | their / theirs |
There are three important things to note about that table.
Firstly, none of the first person singular forms of pronouns and possessive adjectives provide a way to specify the gender of the speaker or writer, and none of the second person singular forms of pronouns and possessive adjectives provide a way to specify the gender of the listener or reader. (This is also true of the other languages known to the author of this essay. If you know of a language which is constructed differently, please use the email link at the bottom of this page to report that fact to the author of this page and to explain that language's grammar.) Since the social evolution of languages takes centuries, it seems reasonable to conclude that the people who constitute English-speaking societies have never felt a need for such a linguistic construct, either because the gender of the participants was obvious (e.g., in a face-to-face conversation) or because it was either irrelevant or unknowable (e.g., in the case of a writer's potential audience of readers).
Secondly, none of the plural forms of pronouns and possessive adjectives provide a way to specify that a group is composed entirely of males or entirely of females. Again, it seems reasonable to conclude that there has never been a need for such a construct. After all, if the gender composition of a group is both known and important, then it can certainly be communicated via relevant nouns and adjectives.
Thirdly, the existence of gender-specific forms of third person singular pronouns and possessive adjectives seems to indicate that English-speaking societies do usually consider it important to know the actual gender of persons under discussion or being mentioned. That should not be surprising, since the continuation of the human species depends upon the development of long-lasting intimate relationships between pairs of persons of different genders.
The meaning of words depends upon either a broadly shared understanding of categories of experience (for which the word is a label) or precise definitions of things which were previously unknown or not experienced. The difficulties (or outright impossibilities) of precise translation between different languages arise because different human cultures have evolved different ways of categorizing human experiences. The addition of a new noun to a language is relatively straightforward if its definition is sufficiently clear and precise. The addition of a new word that is a different part of speech is much more difficult, because its category of experience is much more difficult to define and share.
Under the Constitution of the United States of America (hereinafter "the Constitution"), certain rights and duties with respect to speech are enumerated, and from those other rights have been explicitly or implicitly derived.
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution requires that the person elected to the office of President of the United States take (by speaking aloud) an "Oath or Affirmation," the words of which are specified. In no other Article or Amendment to the Constitution is any particular form of speech mandated of any person, although in various places it is required that certain persons or collective bodies transmit certain types of information to other collective bodies. While Article II does set a precedent for the concept of an oath of office, it does not provide any support for the concept of a mandate that persons use certain words in certain situations.
Simultaneously, Amendment I (the first of a set of ten amendments to the Constitution that are commonly called the Bill of Rights) specifies that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Clearly, the freedoms "of speech" and "of the press" apply to both the spoken word and the written word.
This Constitutional declaration of rights is commonly understood to apply to the states as well, and generally to prohibit censorship of facts and opinions. On the other hand, it also commonly understood not to protect speech that is inherently criminal (such as perjury or fraud) or tortious (such as libel or slander) or that is an explicit incitement to violence or criminal action, among other things. (For further details, see the English Wikipedia article on "United States free speech exceptions," or similar resources.)
An important corollary to the freedoms of speech and of the press is that no one has a right to compel any other person to use particular words in the course of ordinary conversation. This corollary is supported by that portion of Amendment V to the Constitution, which specifies in part that "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." This corollary is also supported by that portion of Amendment I which prohibits abridging the freedom of religion, i.e., which declares a fundamental right to religious belief of a person's own choice. Thus attempting to compel a person to speak or write words that conflict with that person's religious beliefs would be a violation of this right.
1. Biological gender is defined by reproductive function in all living species that reproduce sexually. (Living species that reproduce asexually have no gender, nor do non-living things.) A female creature is one that is equipped with a reproductive system to produce eggs that are capable of being fertilized, either internally or externally, after which they continue development, eventually producing a juvenile creature of the same species as the parent individuals. A male creature is one that is equipped with a reproductive system to provide genetic material in a form that can fertilize an egg produced by a female creature. A neutered creature is one that began life as either a male or a female but lost that functionality through developmental error, accident or deliberate mutilation. A hermaphrodite is a creature that combines both male and female functions in one body. In mobile creatures, this is almost always the result of a developmental error. However, most seed-bearing plants have this characteristic, though this term is almost never applied to them.
2. Grammatical gender has nothing to do with biological gender, but is instead an abstract category of how words are inflected to serve various functions in the language. Examples from Latin (an inflected language): domum (house) is neuter, murus (wall) is masculine, and fenestra (window) is feminine. (For further details, explore how word inflections specify case, number and gender in Latin or other inflected languages.) Incidentally, the words "male" and "female" are not used when referring to grammatical gender. Instead, the adjectives "masculine" and "feminine" are used, as in the second sentence of this paragraph.
3. Gender-specific behavior in humans appears to arrive from one of two causes. The first cause, which is common to many other living species, is the very real physiological differences between males and females. These differences are far more extensive than just the reproductive organs, and most of them are effectively unalterable by either chemical or surgical means. The second cause is socially evolved customs, including but not limited to clothing styles, by which the reality of a person's gender can be made evident without compromising personal modesty. Such customs are evident in all civilized societies that have lasted for more than one generation, because sexual attraction between men and women (which is essential for the continuation of the human race) is not controlled by the invisible factors (such as pheromones and annual breeding cycles) on which other species depend.
4. Postscript — If you think that there are factual errors above, you are welcome to send your explanations to the author using the email link at the bottom of this page. You might even succeed in prompting improvements to this essay.
This page was created on 2024/02/10 and last revised on 2024/07/31.
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