Yeah, this is me talking about pronouns.
But it’s not what you think.
I think we do need some new ones. The traditional ones are old, tired and clunky. But I’m not talking about any of that gender confusion nonsense. Gender neutrality? Ba. I want to saturate gender all the way through our speech.
And this isn’t me saying we should use language differently. I’m not imposing some new speech from on high.
No, parts of the culture already do this.
It emerged naturally.
I say we lean into it.
You can see this neopronoun out in the wild. If you, say, watch a video of a guy with huge ears, you’ll likely see this in the comments section.
Comments like:
“Bro can hear in 4K”
“Bro said ‘lend me your ears’ and everyone agreed”
“Bro can hear colours”
It’s a beautiful thing. I mean, maybe not the roasting. Maybe that’s being mean. But linguistically, it’s mesmerising.
The archaic pronoun ‘he’ is replaced by the new, exciting ‘bro’.
But if that’s all that happens, I wouldn’t be so excited. No. This neopronoun is even more delightful. Consider:
“There’s no sneaking up on bro”
“Only say nice things about bro within earshot – you know, with the solar system”
“After meeting bro, the ear/nose/throat doctor forgot about noses and throats”
The linguistics here is intriguing. ‘Bro’ doesn’t just work in place of ‘he’, but also ‘him’.
There’s more:
“Bro’s shadow is wider than it is tall”
“Bro’s ears have a postcode each”
“Bro’s wifi gets messed up when bro looks the wrong way”
Bye bye, ‘his’. Say hello to the much more intuitive ‘bro’s’.
And it gets even better. Consider this gem:
“POV: About to discover the magic was inside bro all along”
Yep, ‘bro’ can even replace ‘himself’ in a sentence.
Having ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’ and ‘himself’ is clunky and redundant. They all mean the same thing, but each has specific and strict rules on how you can use it. That’s crying out for some streamlining.
“But what do you use for women? ‘Sis’?”
Well, to my ear, ‘girl’ is the female version of ‘bro’. Mapping by vibes, compare how “hey, bro,” and “hey, girl,” and “hey, sis,” all feel.
But the point is I didn’t design ‘bro’. I spotted in the wild. And the weird thing is that if it were a woman with big ears, the comments would mostly use ‘she’ and ‘her’ pronouns.
So I’ll keep an eye out. This will only catch on if there’s a version for women, as well as men.
Now, you might be wondering if I’m serious about this.
Maybe, maybe not.
But I am serious about how easy and simple it can be to make a change.
And, sometimes, it literally feels effortless.
May your next goal be to your life what ‘bro’ is to men’s pronouns – natural, versatile and surprising.
I talk a lot about what that’s like, starting with the most common and devastating mistake you make:
Forgetting that Your Story Isn’t About You.
Which is also the name of my free guide, available when you sign up to my email list like so: