Manhole will be replaced with maintenance hole. Sisters and brothers will be replaced with siblings. And he or she will be banished in favor of they, even if referring to one person.
The City Council’s unanimous decision was meant to send a message about equal chances and representation, said Lori Droste, a council member.
“Your gender has no relevance in whether you can perform work and receive services,” Droste said.
The law would apply to traffic, health and safety regulations, garbage collection, environmental rules, buildings and construction permits — all of the business of a city.
What happens in California has often made its way across the country, whether it was banning smoking in restaurants, enacting strict tailpipe emission standards or allowing right turns at red lights.
But are other American cities ready, as well, to fundamentally change the English language?
Keith Johnson, chair of the department of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley says the English language has been evolving away from gender-specific terms for many years.
“As the society changes, there, will be pressure for the language to change, as well,” Johnson said. “That will be a generational change.”
Already, a number of cities in recent years have adopted laws on gender-related speech.
Philadelphia residents approved a ballot measure by about two-thirds support in May that changed the city’s charter to describe representatives as “council members” rather than “councilmen.” The borough of Fairbanks North Star in Alaska unanimously passed a resolution in late February removing gendered words from its city code and replacing some with the singular “they,” “their” and “them.”
Last month, Multnomah County in Oregon, which has a population of about 800,000 and includes Portland, passed a similar measure, replacing gendered pronouns with the singular use of “they” and related words. Miami replaced gendered words in 2017 and changed all singular pronouns — many of which had previously just said “he” — to “he/she.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.