#tepself

Once the pronoun “tep” obtains official status in the English language based on popular usage, perhaps by being recognized by both the Oxford Dictionary of English and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, below are possible updates that might be made to Wiktionary.

tep - Wiktionary web page

English

Pronunciation

/tep/

Hyphenation: tep

Etymology

Created as an alternative to all other gender pronouns. Coined as a short form for “the person”, “that person” or “this person”. Inspired by the Swedish pronoun hen. Suggested as a mechanism to support the removal of grammatical gender from the English language (as examples, Hungarian does not have gendered pronouns nor any other concept of linguistic gender and Turkish does not have a system of grammatical gender and does not have any gender-specific pronouns).

Introduced Monday, March 9, 2020 (2020-03-09, stylized as 20T0-0E-0P).

Pronoun

tep (third-person, singular, personal pronoun, nominative case, accusative tep, reflexive, emphatic tepself, possessive teps)

(personal) The person previously mentioned or implied. I asked Riley, but tep said that tep didn't know.

(personal) A person. The rulebook clearly states that "if any student is caught cheating, tep will be expelled", and you were caught cheating, were you not, Jessie?

Appendix:English_third-person_singular_pronouns - Wiktionary web page

Neopronouns

“tep” | tep laughed | I kissed tep | teps head hurt | that is teps | tep feed tepself

teps - Wiktionary proposed addition

English

Pronunciation

/teps/

Hyphenation: teps

Etymology

Created as a possessive determiner of tep.

Pronoun

teps

Belonging to tep (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tep). The rule was read from teps rulebook.

tepself - Wiktionary proposed addition

English

Pronunciation

/tep'selvz/

Hyphenation: tep self

Etymology

Created as a reflexive, emphatic pronoun of tep.

Pronoun

tepself (the third-person, singular, personal pronoun, reflexive form of tep, plural themselves)

(reflexive) tep; the object of a verb or preposition that also appears as the subject Tep injured tepself.

(emphatic) tep; an intensive repetition of the subject, often used to indicate the exclusiveness of that person as the only satisfier of the predicate. Tep were injured tepself.

tepify - Wiktionary proposed addition

English

Pronunciation

/tepifai/

Hyphenation: tep i fy

Etymology

Created as a verb supporting the inclusion of tep into the English language and supporting the removal of grammatical gender from the English language (as an example, Finnish lacks grammatical gender entirely).

Verb

tepify (present participle tepifying, simple past and past participle tepified)

(transitive) To transform English before tep (English B.T.) text into English after tep (English A.T.) text. Riley plans to tepify the blog post before publishing it.

English before tep - Wiktionary proposed addition

English

Noun

English before tep, also: English B.T.

The English language before the introduction of the pronoun tep. Most physical books in the archive are written in English before tep.

English after tep - Wiktionary proposed addition

English

Noun

English after tep, also: English A.T.

Towards thinking that is free from the gender binary

(See the companion blog for thoughts on tepifying the English language.)

Existing binary model of sex and gender

Every English speaker is forced to adopt the model that people are categorized into two genders, or two sexes, female and male. For native speakers, this is forced upon their thinking process, even before they can speak. In order to speak English as expected, an English speaker must determine if the person who they are speaking about is a he or a she.

In general, human beings are uncomfortable with being wrong. So we learn very early on to get good at figuring out which pronoun to use and how to address an adult, either as Mr. or as Miss / Mrs. Relatively recently, however, collectively we decided that determining whether a female was married or not was not serving us, so “Ms” has become popular.

Physics model of gravitation

In physics, the model of Newton's law of universal gravitation worked quite well for humanity for a long time. Then more precise measurements were made of observations near large objects with great mass that didn't fit the model. Albert Einstein came up with a new model, called general relativity, which accounted for these relatively rare situations.

In linguistics, more and more people are expressing the desire for a new model that accounts for the fact that not all people fit easily in the existing gender binary model. Imagine being able to speak English as expected by others without ever having to determine whether another human being is a female or a male. The introduction of the new pronoun, “tep”, brings this possibility closer to a reality than ever before.

Previous gender neutral pronouns

Previous attempts at introducing a gender neutral pronoun, such as “sie”, “zie”, “per”, and “thon” appear to augment the existing model of the gender binary. The idea presented with the pronoun “tep” is the replacement of the pronouns “he” and “she” and simplifying further the English language.

Essence of tep

We can think of the essence of the pronoun “tep” as follows.

The pronoun “tep” loosely represents “the person I am talking or writing about”. This makes it very easy to explain to anyone hearing the word for the first time what it means and how to use it.

Use the same verb conjugation for “tep” as for the pronoun “they” (ex. “tep are”, “tep laugh”, “tep have”). This makes verb conjugation more regular for anyone learning English as a new speaker of the language.

Note that using the existing verb conjugation as for the pronoun “it” is not wrong, but simply transitory. This transitory use is to make it easier for people who have many years of experience using English before the introduction of the “tep” pronoun (English B.T.) as they evolve into using English after the introduction of the “tep” pronoun (English A.T.).

Tep replaces any need for the use of the pronouns “she” and “he” (or any other pronoun for that matter), which are no longer necessary. This allows the sidestepping of the whole gender pronoun debate.

Gender in language is something that was made up. For example, the Finnish and Hungarian languages work fine without gender in the language, and many Asian languages worked fine for many years without it before contact with European languages encouraged adoption of gender into their languages.

English speakers are forced to consider gender way more than necessary for the times in which gender might actually be required for the topic being discussed. Do we really need to know in everyday conversation that a person has the ability to provide an egg or a sperm for procreation?

Switching to using “tep” as the singular third person pronoun is a step towards the day when thinking in English is free from the inaccurate gender binary that has hampered English speakers throughout history.

English after tep (English A.T.)

English before tep (English B.T.)