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Attested since 1808. In typography, the em is named after the em quadrat (later called em quad), from m quadrat, a metal type used in letterpress typesetting, which is as wide as the point size of the font.
It said, in a whispering, buzzing voice, "Gee-you-ess-ess-ay-dash-em-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-em-eye-en-gee-oh-dash-pee-eye-pee-dash-pee-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-pee-eye-en-gee-oh."
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Coined by Christine M. Elverson by removing the "th" from them, perhaps influenced by the pre-existing em/'em, now often perceived as apheretic forms of them (though originally unrelated).
(rare,nonstandard)A gender-neutral third-person singular object pronoun, the objective case of ey or e, equivalent to the singular them and coordinate with him and her.
1986 April 1, Michael Spivak, The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting with the AMS-TeX macro package, Providence: American Mathematical Society, →ISBN, →LCCN, LCCZ253.4.T47 S673 1986, page 68:
If the author uses such notation, it should be up to Em to indicate Eir intentions clearly, but there’s no harm checking first.
1997, Steven Shaviro, Doom Patrols : A Theoretical Fiction About Postmodernism, London: Serpent's Tail, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 138:
I may become quite intimate with someone, spend hours with em every night, and yet not have the slightest idea what eir voice sounds like, or what eir RL body looks, feels, and smells like.
2000, Jane Love, “Ethics, Plugged and Unplugged: The Pegagogy of Disorderly Conduct”, in James A. Inman, Donna N. Sewell, editors, Taking flight with OWLs: Examining Electronic Writing Center Work, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, LCCPE1414.T24 1999, page 193:
E invites em to consider how ey represent emselves, and in so doing, e focuses eir attention on the ethics that make human relations possible.
2011 March 15, RJ Edwards, “89: New Friend”, in Riot Nrrd, retrieved 2012-10-06:
And ultimately: I think my readers are mature enough that knowing eir assigned gender is not going to give them an “excuse” to misgender em.
2023, Aimee Ogden, “A Half-Remembered World”, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, vol. 145, no. 1-2, whole no. 768 (July/August 2023), pages 146-202
“You idiot girl! Are you childsick?” She grabbed Asu’s wrist; Asu made no effort to twist away. “Sand and soil, tell me you’re not pregnant. Is it that—what’s eir name? Aeran? Have you lain with em? Tell me!”
1) Used only as an object of a preposition or a verb. *) Some speakers may not distinguish various plurality categories, using only one or two plural pronouns. **) The collective pronouns specify that the action is performed by all subjects together, rather than on their own.
References
Terry Crowley (2004) Bislama Reference Grammar, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi press, →ISBN, page 14
Multiple Latin names for the letter M, m have been suggested. The most common is em or a syllabicm, although there is some evidence which also supports, as names for the letter, mē, əm, mə, and even (in the fourth- or fifth-century first Antinoë papyrus, which gives Greek transliterations of the Latin names of the Roman alphabet’s letters) ιμμε(imme).
Fossilised (2nd person singular) imperative of emō.
Interjection
em
of wonder or emphasis, there!
References
"em", in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
"em", in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
em in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
to sully one's fair fame: vitae splendori(em) maculas(is) aspergere
Arthur E. Gordon, The Letter Names of the Latin Alphabet (University of California Press, 1973; volume 9 of University of California Publications: Classical Studies), especially pages 30–31, 42–44, and 63
Hannah Rosén (1999). Latine loqui: trends and directions in the crystallization of classical Latin. München: Fink. p. 47
María de los Angeles Colós, José Guzman, and John Peabody Harrington (1930s) Chochenyo Field Notes (Survey of California and Other Indian Langauges), Unpublished
The third personsingularpronoun refers to a person or thing other than the speaker or the person being spoken to. Pronouns in Tok Pisin are not inflected for different cases.
1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis1:15:
God i mekim kamap tupela bikpela lait. Bikpela em san bilong givim lait long de, na liklik em mun bilong givim lait long nait. Na God i mekim kamap ol sta tu.
According to Phan Kế Bính's Việt Nam phong tục (1915), apparently the practice of calling each other anh-em for those in relationship originated from the province of Quảng Nam:
1915, Phan Kế Bính, Việt Nam phong tục [Vietnamese customs]:
Spouses from wealthy families tend to call each other cậu and mợ; those employed by the government prefer thầy and cô; while in an average household, they call each other anh and chị. Couples with children call each other thầy em and đẻ em , while those from low-born families use bố cu and mẹ đĩ; there are also those who say bố nó and mẹ nó and those who both call each other nhà ta. In Quảng Nam, a housewife would call her husband anh and a husband would call his wife em. In Nghệ Tĩnh, "husband and wife" is called gấy nhông.
a cousin who is descended from an ancestor who is/was a younger sibling to oneself's or one's spouse's (such as a child of a younger sibling of one of one's parents or a grandchild of a younger sibling of one of one's grandparents)
- Sao anh lại gọi chú ấy là thầy ? Chú ấy là em của em. Chú ấy cũng là em của anh. - Anh thấy mình nên tôn trọng cái có trước. Thầy ấy là thầy của anh từ trước khi anh lấy em.
- Why did you call him "teacher"? He's my "younger sibling", meaning he's yours, too. - I felt like I should respect what comes first. He was my teacher long before we're married.
a person younger than oneself but of the same generation
Tôi yêu em âm thầm, không hi vọng, / Lúc rụt rè, khi hậm hực lòng ghen, / Tôi yêu em, yêu chân thành, đằm thắm, / Cầu em được người tình như tôi đã yêu em.
I loved you, without words, without hope, / Sometimes I felt shy, sometimes I felt tortured with jealousy, / I loved you, truly and deeply, / I pray you will find someone who loves you as much as I ever did.
Usage notes
Textbooks tend to assume grade schoolers and middle schoolers to be young enough to be called em(literally “little sibling”), but high schoolers to be old enough to be called anh(“big brother”) and chị(“big sister”).
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, published 1867, page 51