#78 His & Hers featuring Word of the Year & Color of the Year

#78 His & Hers


#78 His & Hers
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New word & colors for your Valentine… whoever they are

Don’t you agree it’s always been awk­ward, when you didn’t know the gen­der of the per­son in a sen­tence, to have to write “he/​she” & “he or she”? Amper­Art #78 His & Hers was inspired by this sit­u­a­tion. (Frankly, I usu­al­ly just write “it” whether it’s a per­son, ani­mal or slice of piz­za.) So we’d usu­al­ly say “they” which up till now was not prop­er gram­mar, espe­cial­ly in writing.

But it is now. “He/​she” can now be prop­er­ly referred to as a sin­gu­lar “they.”  As in “Whether his is a tie or a tablet, or hers is a neck­lace or a note­book, give them a gift they can real­ly use.” (You could also give them a sub­scrip­tion to Amper­Art which is absolute­ly free.) 

Accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post,

We know about sin­gu­lar they already — we use it every­day with­out think­ing about it, so this is bring­ing it to the fore in a more con­scious way, and also play­ing into emerg­ing ideas about gen­der iden­ti­ty,” said lin­guist Ben Zim­mer, lan­guage colum­nist for the Wall Street Jour­nal, who presided over the voting…”

Full Wash­ing­ton Post arti­cle here.


Word of the Year & Color of the Year

They” has been named the Word of the Year for 2016.

Again, from the Wash­ing­ton Post article:

Sin­gu­lar “they,” the gender-​neutral pro­noun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 lin­guists at the Amer­i­can Dialect Society’s annu­al meet­ing in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

Frankly, I nev­er heard of a Word of the Year till now. But I do know there is always a Pan­tone Col­or of the Year — except for 2016 it’s plur­al (not sin­gu­lar like “they”); there are two Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year:

Rose Quartz & Serenity

Rose Quartz & Seren­i­ty are Pantone’s Col­ors of the Year for 2016. I like Pantone’s deci­sion to fea­ture two col­ors — just like His & Hers — so we can have fun with more amper­sands. And these two col­ors are per­fect for Valen­tines Day. (I dare you: go ahead and express your love with a bar of soap, in the appro­pri­ate col­or of course, and see just how much they love you back.)

More about Pantone’s Col­ors of the Year (all years shown — lots of fun) at Pan​tone​.com.

Var­i­ous shades of each col­or were used for the bath­room tiles in this month’s Amper­Art #78, His & Hers. The wire tow­el hold­er is just one use for this fun & func­tion­al amper­sand acces­so­ry. It can be con­fig­ured as a wine rack, pho­to frame, jew­el­ry hold­er, and more. Even­tu­al­ly I’ll be fea­tur­ing this in the online Amper­Art gift store, but for now the patent is pend­ing and can be made to order in a vari­ety of mate­ri­als & fin­ish­es. Please inquire.

To Do & To Don’t List

AmperArt-TO-DONT-LIST-2016-227w

Here’s a fun & func­tion­al TO DO & TO DON’T LIST fea­tur­ing the Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016 to help keep his & hers goals on track for 2016.

The new design fea­tures the Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016: Rose Quartz & Serenity.

Down­load the TO DO & TO DON’T list here and print out sev­er­al copies for your friends.


chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. There’s lots for both his & hers inter­ests — design­ers, typog­ra­phers, copy­writ­ers, artists, pho­tog­ra­phers, just about any­one in the cre­ative field … who­ev­er they are.

Most arti­cles will cov­er var­i­ous aspects of design, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & rav­ing. (more…)