She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace,[…]; and the way she laughed, cackling like ahen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.
2005, Roderick Sutterby, Malcolm Greenhalgh, “Life in the Nursery”, inAtlantic Salmon: An Illustrated Natural History, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books,→ISBN, page21:
As spawning time approaches – autumn or very early winter in most rivers, though in some late-run streams salmon may spawn as late as January or February – thehen's colouration becomes first a matt-pewter and then a drab dark brown-grey. The cock fish, in contrast, begins to gain some brighter colours.
Contrast withhenne; wherehen indicates movement,henne indicates position. Thushvor løber han henne? means "where is he running?", whereashvor løber han hen? means "to where is he running?".
1) Not as common in written language. 2) Inflected as anadjective. 3) Inprescriptivist use, used only as direct object (accusative). 4) Inprescriptivist use, used only as indirect object (dative). 5) Archaic. Nowadays used for formal, literary or poetic purposes, and in fixed expressions. 6) To differentiate from the singulargij,gelle (object formelle) and variants are commonly used colloquially in Belgium. Archaic forms aregijlieden andgijlui ("you people").
7)Zich is preferred if the reflexive pronoun immediately follows the subject pronounu, e.g.Meldt u zich aan! 'Log in!', and if the subject pronounu is used with a verb form that is identical with the third person singular but different from the informal second person singular, e.g.U heeft zich aangemeld. 'You have logged in.' Onlyu can be used in an imperative if the subject pronoun is not overt, e.g.Meld u aan! 'Log in!', whereu is the reflexive pronoun. Otherwise, bothu andzich are equally possible, e.g.U meldt u/zich aan. 'You log in.' 8) Not officially recognized in standard Dutch. It has gained popularity, especially in mainstream media and queer circles, as a respectful term fornon-binary individuals.
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the criticaltonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
Hen can be used when someone's gender is unknown or irrelevant, or to refer to someone who prefers a gender neutral pronoun instead ofhan(“he”) orhun(“she”).
Hen can be used when someone's gender is unknown or irrelevant, or to refer to someone who prefers a gender neutral pronoun instead ofhan(“he”) orho(“she”).
“hen”, inNorsk ordbok: ordbok over det norske folkemålet og det nynorske skriftmålet (in Norwegian Nynorsk), volume 5, Oslo: Samlaget,2005, columns292–293
“hen” in Ivar Aasen (1873)Norsk Ordbog med dansk Forklaring
Created as an alternative tohon(“she”) andhan(“he”). The coining of the word has probably been influenced by the Finnishhän, a personal pronoun used about human beings and which does not specify gender (Finnish lacks grammatical gender entirely).Hen was suggested as early as 1966 by linguist byRolf Dunås in Swedish regional newspaperUpsala Nya Tidning and was proposed again in a 1994 article by linguist Hans Karlgren, but did not receive widespread attention until around 2010.[1]
(neologism)A third-person singular pronoun of unspecified gender;they,thon;alternative tohon(“she”) andhan(“he”).
2011, Anders Lokko, “En sång om att ha följt sitt hjärta”, inSvenska Dagbladet[7]:
Alla skilsmässor och separationer är olika. Men i nästan samtliga är det i slutändan någon som blir lämnad och någon som lämnar. Ingen av de rollerna är enkel. Fast det är när den som lämnar gör det för atthen har träffat någon annan […]
All divorces and separations are different. But in almost all cases, someone is left behind or someone leaves. None of those roles are easy. However, it's when the one who does leaves becausethey have met someone else […]
2011, Lotten Wiklund, “Jag vill vara hen – inte hon eller han”, inDagens Nyheter[8], archived fromthe original on2 June 2013:
I efterhand harhen förstått att det förmodligen har att göra med atthen aldrig riktigt accepterat att det bara skulle finnas två kön.
In hindsight,they have come to understand that it probably has to do with the fact thatthey have never accepted that there are just two genders.
2012, Jesper Lundqvist,Kivi och Monsterhund:
[…]skahen få en hund, kan de halvt säkert lova[…]
[…]thenthey will get a dog, they can almost promise[…]
2013, Lova Olsson, “Arnholm lanserar 'hen' i riksdagen”, inSvenska Dagbladet[9]:
– Målet är att varje individ ska få det stödhen behöver för att så snabbt som möjligt lära sig svenska, komma i arbete och klara sin egen försörjning, sade den nyblivna jämställdhetsministern.
– The goal is to make sure that every individual should receive the supportthey need to learn Swedish, start working and manage to support themselves as soon as possible, said the newly appointed Minister of Gender Equality.
2013, Ann-Marie Begler, Caroline Dyrefors Grufman, “Flera allvarliga kränkningar i skolan de senaste veckorna”, inDagens Nyheter[10]:
– En person i personalen som sliter i och skäller på barnen, hotar med stryk och skrämmer dem med dethen vet att de är rädda för.
– A person on the staff pushes around and yells at the children, threatens with violence and frightens them with thingsthey know they are afraid of.
Although the word has gained common use, it is not nearly as common as the gendered wordshan andhon. From 2011 to 2020, usage ofhen increased hundredfold in the media, but no increase was seen in 2021.[2] It has been especially popular among activists for gender equality and adherents ofqueer theory, and with the transgender community.[3] In 2022, usage ofhen was ranked in shared first place alongside misspelling of words as the most annoying language phenomenon in a Swedish survey.[4] Publishers of manuals of style and theSwedish Language Council do not proscribe the usage ofhen, but recommend the inflected formshens as the possessive andhen overhenom as the object.[5][6]
^Anders Q Björkman (8 March 2012), “”Hen” föreslogs av språkforskare redan 1994 – i SvD [”Hen” proposed by linguists already 1994 – in SvD]”, inSvenska Dagbladet[2], archived fromthe original on10 April 2013
^“Hen står still i svenska medier [hen is stagnant in Swedish media]”, inSpråktidningen, Språktidningen, 18 January 2022, retrieved18 January 2022
^“”Jag vill vara hen – inte hon eller han” [”I want to behen – nothon orhan”]”, inDagens Nyheter[3], 17 May 2011
^“Särskrivningar och hen irriterar mest i svenskan [Splitting of compound words and hen causing most irritation in Swedish]”, inSpråktidningen[4], Språktidningen, 25 April 2022, retrieved26 January 2023
Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor,A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published1867,page46
