"Playing the pronoun game" is the act of concealing
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
in conversation by not using a
gender-specific pronoun
A third-person pronoun is a pronoun that refers to an entity other than the speaker or listener. Some languages with gender-specific pronouns have them as part of a grammatical gender system, a system of agreement where most or all nouns have a va ...
for a
partner
Partner, Partners, The Partner, or, The Partners may refer to:
Books
* ''The Partner'' (Grisham novel), by John Grisham, 1997
* ''The Partner'' (Jenaro Prieto novel), 1928
* ''The Partners'' (book), a 1983 book by James B. Stewart
* ''Partner'' (m ...
or a lover, which would reveal the sexual orientation of the person speaking. Someone may employ the pronoun game when conversing with people to whom they have not "coming out, come out". In a situation in which revealing one's sexual orientation would have adverse consequences (such as the loss of a job), playing the pronoun game is seen to be a necessary act of concealment.
The pronoun game involves avoiding reference to one's sexual orientation and allowing the listener's assumptions on the matter to prevail. It also involves not drawing the listener's attention to the fact that the sex of a pronoun's antecedent (grammar), antecedent is not being specified. As such, playing the pronoun game involves
*re-phrasing sentences such that they avoid the need for third-person singular sex-specific pronouns (e.g. "We decided to eat out," rather than "She and I decided to eat out."), often using amphilogism, a form of circumlocution (e.g. "The person I was with and I decided to go to the play");
*using gender-neutral language such as "firefighter" rather than "fireman", phrases such as "my partner", "the better half" or "my significant other", or the person's name where it isn't gender-specific; and
*using gender-neutral pronouns that have long-since entered common usage, such as singular they, singular ''they'', without employing uncommonly used (and thus attention-calling) neopronouns such as "thon", "hu", "xe", "sie" and "hir" or the Spivak pronoun construction.
See also
*Circumlocution
*Closeted
*Feminist language reform (also known as Feminist Language Planning)
*Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender
*Gender-neutral language
*Gender-neutral pronoun
*He never married
*Open secret
*Lavender linguistics
References
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* {{cite web, access-date=June 12, 2005, url=http://www.countplusplus.ca/archive/blog/200502/#Thepronoungame, title=The pronoun game, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060721060745/http://www.countplusplus.ca/archive/blog/200502/#Thepronoungame, archive-date=July 21, 2006 (Gives an example of how people often don't notice someone is playing the pronoun game)
External links
"The pronoun game" at Everything2
LGBT linguistics
Pronouns