What do you get when you put “334 linguists, lexicographers, grammarians and etymologists” in a room?
That’s what happened here earlier this month anyway, at a downtown Marriott, where members of the 127-year-old American Dialect Society anointed “they,” the singular, gender-neutral pronoun, the 2015 Word of the Year. As in: “They and I went to the store,” where they is used for a person who does not identify as male or female, or they is a filler pronoun in a situation where a person’s gender identity is unknown.
What is it they’re trying to accomplish? They, used to represent the plural, are trying to create a new standard for pronouns that accommodate the flavor of the month, gender fluidity.
“We need to accept ‘they,’ and we need to do it now,” shouted another linguist, hidden behind the crowds.
Why? Because some folks are complaining that their feelings are hurt because the language fails to accommodate gender identity beyond the binary?
“But I think we’ve seen a lot of attention this year to people who are identifying out of the gender binary.”
Gender binary: That’s the idea that there are two distinct genders, one male and one female, with nothing in between.
It’s hard to imagine anyone denying the existence of gay, bi, or any number of other permutations of gender identity, though one may well doubt that some claims are anything more than wearing the latest gender fashion trend.
But to Ms. Curzan’s point: Indeed. If we’ve learned anything over the last year, from vocal transgender spokespeople like Caitlin Jenner and Laverne Cox; from on-screen depictions like “Transparent,” the Emmy-winning Amazon series about a family patriarch who comes out as transgender; or even from Miley Cyrus — who has said she identifies as “pansexual,” or sexually fluid — it’s that both sexuality (whom you go to bed with) and gender (who you go to bed as) are much more … flexible.
Well, if Miley Cyrus says so. But what happened in the room of word nerds isn’t about how Miley Cyrus views herself this week, but how the language should be changed to accommodate the feelings of people who have gone from hiding their gender identities to demanding that the language be changed so that no person be traumatized by a pronoun.
“I think we, and particularly young people, increasingly view gender not as a given, but as a choice, not as a distinction between male and female, but as a spectrum, regardless of what’s ‘down there,’” said Julie Mencher, a psychotherapist in Northampton, Mass., who conducts school workshops on how to support transgender students. “Many claim that gender doesn’t even exist.”
This isn’t a debate over binary gender versus gender as a social construct, another fashion trend where people pretend immutable fact doesn’t exist because it conflicts with their feelings. Rather, this is about words and the ability to communicate ideas from one person to another.
It does exist when it comes to language, though. He, she, hers, his, male, female — there’s not much in between. And so has emerged a new vocabulary, of sorts: an attempt to solve the challenge of talking about someone who identifies as neither male nor female (and, inevitably, the linguistic confusion that comes along with it).
What challenge? What linguistic confusion? What difference does it make how a person self-identifies when it comes to the pronouns used to talk about someone? And why has this issue, gender identity, been elevated to the status of something worth undermining a language about?
For the purpose of word nerds, perhaps it’s just a hemline issue, that without language being in a constant state of flux, there is little reason for them to have jobs, just as fashion designers wouldn’t have to design new clothing if hemlines remained constant. How exciting it must be for linguists to find themselves relevant in a language that didn’t really have much use for their existence.
“Ze” is a pronoun of choice for the student newspaper at Wesleyan, while “E” is one of the categories offered to new students registering at Harvard.
At American University, there is ”ey,” one of a number of pronoun options published in a guide for students (along with information about how to ask which one to use).
There’s also “hir,” “xe” and “hen,” which has been adopted by Sweden (a joining of the masculine han and the feminine hon); “ve,” and “ne,” and “per,” for person, “thon,” (a blend of “that” and “one”); and the honorific “Mx.” (pronounced “mix”) — an alternative to Ms. and Mr. that was recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary. (The “x” in Mx. is meant to represent an unknown, similar to the use of x in algebraic equations.)
The deconstruction of language in the name of feelz isn’t a new thing. Two generations ago, a person who couldn’t walk was called handicapped. But that was deemed hurtful, as it diminished him, made him feel less of a person than someone who could walk. So it morphed into physically challenged, which has since morphed into differently abled.
All of which made the person who couldn’t walk feel better, but made it impossible to determine what was wrong with them. If they needed an accommodation, would it be a white cane, a sign language interpreter or a wheelchair? Who knew?
With gender identity, the new rule is that we’re to ask everyone we meet what their preferred choice of pronouns should be, so that when we talk about them when they aren’t there, we can use their choice of words.
As for the pronouns: “They” may or may not correspond with these identities — which is why it’s in anybody’s best interest to simply ask. But when you do, don’t make the common mistake of calling it a preferred pronoun — as it is not considered to be “preferred.”
The linguists in the room were doing what linguists do, coming up with new standards for language that accommodate 31 70 flavors while recognizing that without a more universal standard, communication fails. Even that can’t be done, because no matter what standard these 334 fashion designers decide upon, it will fail to satisfy the very people for whom this malignant effort is intended. Whatever word they settle upon will still not be “preferred” by all, and so they replace one “hurtful” word with another.
“It’s not intuitive at all,” her girlfriend, the lesbian poet Eileen Myles, said in the article.
Worse, it’s not communicative. Use the word “they,” reflecting the plural, to a judge when you mean the singular and the best you can hope for is confusion. Use the word “Xe” and see which jail your client is sent to. The purpose of language is not to make people feel good about themselves, but to communicate ideas from one person to another.
As Orwell wrote in Politics and the English Language,
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible….Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
This likely doesn’t concern the linguists, whether because of their political leanings or their exuberance at being in the epicenter of controversy, where they are suddenly consequential after being on the periphery of relevance for so long. But for those of us who need the ability to communicate clearly and with precision, their happy day is a pending disaster.
Words are nothing more than a tool, a means of communication. When they cease to serve that purpose because they’ve been corrupted by feelings, thought dies with them, just as it did in that room of 334 linguists, lexicographers, grammarians and etymologists.
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I’ve been using “hen” to describe feminists for decades. Who knew I was so cutting edge?
“They” has been used for centuries as a singular pronoun, appearing in the works of celebrated writers such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Austen. This is actually noted briefly in the article to which you link. So nobody’s trying to contort English into weird new shapes by recommending the singular “they” — indeed, they’re actually defending traditional English against awkward phrases like “he or she” or linguistic atrocities like “ze” and “hir.”
If you think you’re Shakespeare, Chaucer or Austen, give it a shot. See how it works out for you.
You cry for more precision and deride when it’s provided.
Example?
Well, I would offer that a consistent theme in our banter vis a vis the SJ comment section is your consistently berating me for responding to higher order conversations, instead of the specifics of your posts. However, specifically, in this article you write:
“But for those of us who need the ability to communicate clearly and with precision, their happy day is a pending disaster.” Their, meaning the individuals who decided a new, more precise word was needed to describe something that did not previously have a word.
Whether you, or anybody else likes it or not a measurable percentage of live births in this country are born somewhere on a spectrum of sexual identification. 1 in 1500 of those children are so outwardly atypical they have traditionally been assigned a sex identity surgically, shortly after birth.
Other reasons for this fluidity, or non-binary status, include external sex organs which do not match internal ones, having the sex organs of both male and female, or having the outward appearance of one sex and the endocrinology of the other. These are medical facts which human beings must live with and, traditionally, often suffer a lifetime of awkward situations, depression, ridicule, and bullying.
While I’m sure holding the notion of creating a new word to refer to them will score you more points with your conservative readers, it contradicts your call for more precision in general, and in this piece.
This is the problem. You write, “You cry for more precision,” which obviously referred to this post, and “and deride when it’s provided.” I ask for an example of this, and you give me this lengthy, silly, irrelevant response.
This is not a “higher order conversation.” This is non-responsive. And I have no interest in explaining the logical disconnect of the rest of your comment, that genital abnormalities in newborns, medically corrected immediately, somehow connect to a need for individualized pronouns 20 years later. I have no idea if this scores points with my conservative readers. It certainly does with my intelligent readers.
English already has a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun: “it”.
Inanimate objects will object.
I’m looking forward to the day when I use one of the pronouns I learned long ago with a person, and he or she objects. Then I’ll shift to using that perfectly good pronoun “it” as you suggest. If there is a flurry of consternation afterwards, so be “it”.
In Finnish, we have a gender-neutral third-person pronoun, as our grammatical third person has no gender. However, it is used mainly in literary style. In everyday speech, you refer to people as “it”. Only machines, pets, suckling babies, demented geriatric patients and the president of the republic are “hän”.
Yet even here, there always is discussion whether we should create a gender-specific third person pronoun, like the Indoeuropeans have. I think the discussion referred to by SHG should be a good example for us to avoid it.
Ah, Finland.
In order to be fully inclusive, I prefer s/h/it over they or the other feeble attempts.
And how does that work out for you?
Not to speak for Ross, but I would imagine it works out exceptionally well.
I’m still upset that we did away with the T-V distinction.
Forgive them, Your Grace, for they know not what they do.
Nobody needs to “know” anymore. That word is so archaic.
It’s not about “gender fluidity” or even really feminism. It’s just a pronoun to refer to a person, without being forced to also mention their gender. What if you, as the writer, don’t know or don’t care? How many times have we had to contort our writing or speech to include both genders, as in “Whoever found the ice tray, would he, or she, please return it to the stacks?” It’s annoying.
Much easier to just use “they”. This is indisputable.
“Much easier” is not a reason to defile language. This is indisputable.
Lots of things are “much easier,” like beating a confession out of a guy or ripping people’s homes apart at will without the annoyance of getting a search warrant.
“Defile?” Don’t be ridiculous.
Language has always struck a balance between accuracy/rigidity and convenience/fluidity. And the “convenience/fluidity” aspects have always been linked to then-current socio-cultural preferences. That is a big part of the reason that we aren’t currently speaking Middle English, or using “thee” and “thou.”
In a culture where people ascribe importance to gender, we will end up defining (or redefining) a lot of words for gender. That’s just how it works, defilers-of-language aside.
Yeah, I figured you would leave a moronic comment. You don’t disappoint.
Running with hobnailed boots over language is a bit like spraying graffiti on a work of art. Sometimes graffiti is art, just as Shakespeare added dozens of new words to the English language and e. e. cummings played with words to write his enduring poetry.
You couldn’t have picked a worse example if you tried. Thee and thou fell out of fashion precisely because they were popular with the Puritans, who annoyed the hell out of everybody else in the Baroque age.
Anyway, Latin, as always, neatly solves this problem. There’s a pronoun, iste/ista/istud, meaning “that unpleasant fellow over there.” Use the neuter form and you’re good to go.
“Since Gina, Larry and their friends could not all afford First Class tickets to Las Vegas, they ended up flying in coach.” Nobody offended; no clear message communicated.
Nigel, I could have mentioned it’s “economy,” not , “coach.”
However, the really offensive part of your comment is the contention someone was not in first class.
The mere thought of being in –yuk, “comfort plus” is sending me to my fake liquor globe (the one that used to be in the Skymall catalog). Yeah, I am the only person who bought that thing.
To be clear, it would otherwise be a “real liqour globe” but I’m hiding the good pills there.
Is this the best you can do? How about “would whoever found the ice tray please return it…” See. No contortion and no “they” necessary.
And why has this issue, gender identity, been elevated to the status of something worth undermining a language about?
For those of us that don’t speak Olde English or even that new fangled, Middle English, can you give a working definition of what “undermining a language” entails? I’m having trouble understanding the rest of this post without that.
Thanks.
Oh, and I think there’s a typo (who can tell, really?) when you wrote: “an alternative to Ms. and Mr.” Did you mean Mr, Mrs & Miss? That’s what they used when I was in school.
Smart ass. As for your “alternative to Ms. and Mr.,” that’s a quote. Complain to the author if you have a beef.
Of course, this reminds me of the time that the linguists gathered to discuss the “because x” phenomenon (2013 word of the year as per the American Dialect Society).
Perhaps, you’re more familiar with that one
And the band played on….
I still think that’s hysterical. Because . . . reasons.
SHG, someone needs to get you a Newspeak Dictionary. Your failure to embrace modern language is doubleplusungood.
Given the speed of change, I get all my new words from twitter and the Urban Dictionary. It’s super-di-duper.
The generations aren’t going by as fast as you think, my friend. Two generations ago, someone who couldn’t walk was called crippled. But that was deemed hurtful, so there was a push to change it to handicapped…
Which amplifies your point, of course.
Nevertheless, these 334 specialists have little influence on what the language actually is. People have been using “they” as the unspecified gender pronoun for a long time (as in “if a person can’t use proper English, they will appear stupid”), so I’m afraid that battle has been lost. The language specialists railed against such usage for years, to no effect. Now they’ve apparently decided that if you can’t beat’em, join’em, and then go even more extreme.
I was going to bring up “crippled,” but it was always somewhat derogatory. Handicapped people didn’t call themselves crippled. Others did. As for people who use “they” because they’re barely, if at all, capable of using the language correctly, there will always be stupid people. There is no known cure.
And as for the 334 linguists, it’s not that they rule the world, but validate the feelz. There’s nothing feelz likes more than to be validated.
I too have similar issues with “they” as a singular pronoun, but it does have one particularly good use, and was used as such with regularity at least as far back as the late 90s through the mid aughts in academia (at least in the web of university folk I floated amongst in various fields both as a student and teacher). Then it was never about the feelz as per now, but about finding ways of keeping strict anonymity of student identity. The point was to >cloudclarify< identities of individuals is an abomination to the language.
As I recall from my long-ago and limited study of Tagalog, a Filipino language, there is just one genderless pronoun, “siya”, used. It would interesting to find out if other languages are like that. Maybe it is not such a big deal.
Well, as the LatinX say, “no.”
I always thought, “they” was the secretive organization or person that ran “things.”
Hence, at one point, I actually owned the phone number 1800 I-AM-THEY.
But, those were the good years when i could afford $8 per month for something silly. Since I’ve become a losing trader I’ve had to settle for $3 Chinese squeezable squawking plastic chickens that resonate around 100db.
Sadly, I gave that away as a gift to a judge we know. I’d ask but I suspect he doesn’t want the video of him choking his chicken shown on this site or any other.
Don’t go there or he might offer up a donkey video.
losingtrader and SHG,
I would offer to serve each of you as your “straight man,” but “they” might misconstrue my meaning. All the best.
RGK
As a prescriptive matter, I dislike this use of “they,” but as a descriptive matter, I find that I myself, and most people I know, use it subconsciously from time to time. I’d bet you use it too, but maybe you are one of the curmudgeons who always insists on using “whom” in speech and who still says “I shall” but “you will” when Fowler says you should.
Your point is well taken if you think the linguists are being prescriptive, or at least that they are being prescriptive before the facts on the ground warrant it. But linguists also seek to describe how words are used, not just to prescribe how words should be used.
The difference is push and pull. Whether with or without the linguists’ blessing, people will use whatever words they want, and eventually, it will become part of common usage. Here, a handful of special folk are demanding that society adopt to their special demands. They are pushing themselves on society whether society likes it or not.
As for “they,” they don’t like they, which is a point that cannot be ignored. They prefer Xi, or eX or some other variation as determined by every individual who thinks they are owed their personal pronouns. So neither the linguists, nor society, could work its magic even if it wanted to, because we can’t decide other people’s pronouns for them under their rules of individualized pronouns.
We are now being oppressed by the theytriarchy.
I agree that the idea of 300+ “experts” sitting in a room deciding what words are appropriate is appalling. I agree as well that the use of “they” to avoid having to choose a singular, gender-specific pronoun is dumb and only serves to make the language unnecessarily less precise.
But the issue of people who don’t identify as one or the other gender seems to me worth a little more thought. There are such people, and I’m not sure the question of what pronoun describes them is simply one of feelings rather than perceived (and perhaps actual) reality. Thus, it seems to me reasonable to have a singular, gender-neutral pronoun for those people. But I would not want to see a singular, gender-neutral pronoun become the default used in everyday conversation for everyone regardless of self identification. The large majority of people see themselves as belonging to one gender or the other, and therefore the default should be the more traditional, precise, gender-specific pronouns.
(As a side note, I think your using the evolution of words for those with disabilities as an example doesn’t work well. “Handicapped” is no more descriptive than “disabled” or “differently abled.” None of them tells the listener the nature of the person’s disability. I don’t know the reasons for the various changes, but I don’t think the later choices are less precise in any sense.)
You keep using the phrase, “seems to me.” Why? Do you think this is a survey, or that things that “seem to you” are material? The vast majority of people don’t give a shit about the less than 1% of the population that obsesses over gender fluidity. That this is their reality isn’t the question; that the language for everyone else should somehow be forced to change to accommodate their feelings (and reality or not, the demand for change is nothing but accommodation of their feelings) is absurd. Regardless of how it “seems to you,” unless, of course, how it “seems to you” dictates the future of language. If not, then how it “seems to you” is irrelevant.*
As for handicapped, it referred to a physical limitation, as opposed to myriad other challenges. Blind meant blind. Deaf meant deaf. Now, all deficits fall under the differently abled description. If someone said they had a handicap, it was not considered rude to ask what it was. If anything, it was invited, as that way it could be accommodated. It was the norm to be specific about one’s handicap, but because the discussion here was used more as a generic example, I didn’t get that detailed. So, your point is well taken and I probably should have used “gimp” instead.
*My reply is less about the substance of your comment than your use of mediated language to temper your point. Forget the equivocation and go for the jugular. You’re allowed an opinion, and don’t need to qualify it.
OK, legal question. If Miley Cirus gets convicted of a crime, does she go to a male or female prison, or, does Trump need to fund a pansexual prison.
Asking for an acquaintence.
You ask “What difference does it make how a person self-identifies when it comes to the pronouns used to talk about someone? ” In the abstract, perhaps nothing. But it certainly makes a difference to specific individuals who identify in a particular way. So while you can rail against a general trend, I wonder: Would you similarly reject an individual preference in your professional life?
For instance: If opposing counsel made clear that they preferred to be addressed as Mx. in court or other communications, would you continue to address them as Mr. or Ms.? What about a client? If your client made clear that they preferred a singular “they” as a pronoun, would you attempt to gender the client regardless and use “he” or “she” in your communications?
I ask because you often stress the importance of putting the responsibilities of a lawyer above personal preferences. So in this case, would your “feelz” of general antipathy outweigh this particular aspect of a client relationship or of professionalism and collegiality with a fellow attorney? And if you would respect those individual preferences, then what’s the problem with acknowledging the term as a part of the language?
No. But I do look forward to some lawyer complaining to a federal judge that I refuse to call that lawyer Mx. Smith. It would be a wonderful bonding opportunity with the judge, as we go out for a drink after court and laugh and laugh.
The problem with your questions is they relate to a fantasy world that exists only in academia, not in the trenches. Your questions are ludicrous in real life. Calling a client by their personal pronouns has zero to do with the responsibilities of representing them. That you conflate the two is reminder of how disconnected legal academia is from the practice of law.
Heh. I mean, the practice of law does actually involve trans lawyers and trans clients. That’s not a fantasy world.
And although I admit that it’s been almost four years since I was a practicing litigator, if I recall correctly (it is a bit foggy) I think I would often communicate with my clients, send them emails, have meetings with them, etc. In those situations, showing respect to the client, listening to the client, representing the client in a manner that met the client’s needs—those were all things I thought were important. Perhaps that was naive. But if my client wanted to be called Dr. Smith instead of Ms. Smith, I called her Dr. Smith. Heck, I had a client once who was really really really particular that her company was referred to as Company Inc. not Company, Inc. So I made sure I wrote it how she wanted it. In that context, it’s not a big deal for me to call a client by whatever they want.
But apparently you would refuse in the case of a trans client. I guess that’s fine for you! I’d be interested in hearing how that turns out for you.
I know a ton of LBGT+ lawyers. You know what they give a shit about? Winning their cases. You know what they don’t give a shit about? This nonsense. By the way, they all have great senses of humor about it all.
But then comes the non-sequitur:
One thing has nothing to do with the other. If a client came to me and was more concerned about being called Mx. then winning their case, I would tell them we’re not a good fit. I only represent sophisticated clients, and have no tolerance for petty idiocy getting in the way of representing clients. And if they are more concerned about winning their case than this infantile bullshit, then this isn’t an issue.
Your conflation of this nonsense with calling a Dr. a Dr., or calling a company by its correct name, is bizarre. They are not comparable in any way, though I can understand that you’re so indoctrinated by the insanity of academia that you can’t distinguish these things any more. It makes me sad.
As for how it works out, I wouldn’t be too concerned. It’s unlikely any of the special snowflakes will be able to afford me for many, many years to come. By then, there will be some new flavor of the month.
Based on your use of the singular “they” and “them” in the fourth paragraph, I’d say we’ve reached an agreement.
There ya go. Peace, brother.
I, too, am curious at your comparison of someone who has earned the title of doctor with someone who demands to be addressed as Mx. What if the trans person told you to address they as doctor? What if they demanded to be addressed as “your royal majesty”? It makes no more, nor less, sense, since your only concern is that you appease your client’s whims.
Did you have any lines you wouldn’t cross, or would you acquiesce to any demand a client made of you to get a buck? If a paying client told you to give them a nice foot massage, would you do that too? Walk their dog, pick up their dry cleaning, anything?
Two things strike me about your rationalization. Rather than expect the client to stay with you because of legal acumen, you fear they will flee you if you don’t agree to their every demand. And you lack any self-respect. Perhaps that’s why you no longer practice “litigation” (the word used by lawyers who pretend to be trial lawyers but aren’t) and have gone to academia, where no one will ever challenge you for conflating reality with feelz.
1. I never feared that a client would leave me. I always had plenty of work.
2. I certainly don’t pretend to be a trial lawyer. I used the term litigation because that’s what I did. If I wanted to say trial lawyer I’d have said trial lawyer.
3. I marvel at your extrapolation from “I like to call folks by what they like to be called, because it’s really no skin off my nose” to “I will walk your dog and pick up your dry cleaning” to “I have no self-respect.” Wow. You certainly had some fun with that one.
4. I’m always amazed when a person can get worked into such a lather about the idea of using “they” instead of “he or she” that they write an irate blog post or comment or whatever, but it’s the *other* folks who have the “feelz.” Surrrrrre.
“Surrrrrre.”
Just between us, you were the one who got worked into a lather, not Myles. And “surrrrre” is just lame. You get no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
As you failed in your four points (cool list, by the way) apologia to respond to my question about your failed doctor analogy, I gather you concede that your argument was idiotic. Now that we’re past that, let’s move on to your next effort to move the goalposts by now claiming that your argument is “I like to call folks by what they like to be called, because it’s really no skin off my nose,” flagrantly false as your purpose in getting into a lather with SHG was that others should do so, since no one ever said you couldn’t be as big an asshole as you want to be. This isn’t an argument. You already laid it out for all to see. You can try to move the goalposts all you want. Nobody is fooled.
But you did respond, if poorly, to your personal butthurt for being outed as a fool. Surrrrre. Brilliant.
Just because DZ had to go there doesn’t mean you have to. Stay classy.
And DZ, when you’re being disingenuous, don’t be surprised and offended that someone called you out. Nobody said you can’t call your client Queen of Sheba if you want to, but that wasn’t the point of your comments. You are entitled to be as ridiculous as you want to be, but that has nothing to do with your contention that lawyers are somehow obliged to dive down the rabbit hole with you.
1. I’m glad you liked my list.
2. I agree the Dr. analogy isn’t great. Oh well. I was just thinking of situations where maybe someone had a PhD in field but wasn’t a medical doctor, but wanted to be called doctor, and I wouldn’t normally do that but they wanted me to so I did. And you’re right that I wouldn’t call someone “Queen of Sheeba” on official correspondence. That’s just sort of weird.
3. The reason why I started discussing how I might use the singular “they” or a title like “Mx.” with a client wasn’t because I demanded that all lawyers do it, and it wasn’t because I wanted to be an asshole. SHG’s original post criticized linguists who approved of the singular “they.” He thought that was absurd. I didn’t read the linguists as saying everyone must do this, or that lawyers were required to use it in pleadings, but that such use shouldn’t be avoided out of some sense that it is *wrong*. In response to SHG’s objection that such use is always wrong and ridiculous, I tried to think of a situation where he might use a singular “they” (aside from his own comments to this post). I know that SHG cares a lot about client service, so I figured he might use “they” with a client if that was the client’s preference. Apparently not. And that’s fine/cool/whatever. Anyway, that’s the “no skin of my nose” point. I just don’t see the need to assert that the use of the singular “they” or these other sorts of terms is *wrong* and must be uniformly rejected. If a client wants me to use “they,” I have no problem with that.
4. I concede that “surrrrrre” is sort of ridiculous. But I like it!
5. I’m sorry to tell you that despite your best attempts—calling my argument idiotic, saying I’m an asshole, saying I’m a fool, etc.—I am not “butthurt.” I’m just fine; so is my butt. This whole “butthurt” thing is weird. I mean, if I’m in a discussion with someone, and they say I have no self-respect and that I lack legal acumen and I’m a fake trial lawyer, or whatever, is the idea that I should just ignore that, and instead try to sift through that nonsense to the substance of whatever argument is being presented? And that if I happen to mention the fact that someone said I have no self-respect, that means I’m “butthurt”? Weird. Is “butthurt” like “judicial activism”—something only the other side suffers from? If I respond to a comment, I’m butthurt. If SHG writes a fifteen-paragraph post about some linguists and a pronoun, he’s just telling it like it is.
This comment is just weird.
I won’t deny that.
Well… the singular gender-neutral they, if not the gender-ambiguous they, has already been specifically adopted by our sensible northern neighbors as a preferred pronoun for indefinite singular antecedents in legal texts. (you can cut this out as per your url rules, but it has nice advice on the issue http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/legis-redact/legistics/p1p32.html )
As for the American Dialect Society… well, it’s all about dialect. They’re not concerned with formal written English, if that wasn’t clear from the start. Personally I was rooting for one of the runner-ups for their word of the year, ZFG, zero fucks given.
That Canada has approved the singular “they” kinda proves the point, eh?
For a gender neutral pronoun I have often used s/he. They is plural and I think s/he works better than she/he or he/she.
And yes, it is binary.
I should point out that we are contemplating usage advice from a guy whose profession regularly busts out such literary poetry as “If any term, provision, Section, or portion of this Agreement, or the application thereof to any person, place, or circumstance, shall be held to be invalid, void, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining terms, provisions, Sections, and portions of this Agreement shall nevertheless continue in full force and effect without being impaired or invalidated in any way. E pluribus unum quid pro quo.” So, there’s that!
I won’t push your policy on links, but I will point out that the following sentence previously appeared on this blog:
“Whenever someone argues why men are such monsters to women, they invariably invoke the hated strawman […]”
I am a little curious what it is about this fight against language evolution that appeals to you. It seems as if this is a fight that you’re bound to lose in the end, even if you are completely right.
That’s called begging the question, a logical fallacy. You made a false assumption upon which I’m supposed to respond. By no means is are intelligent people “bound to lose in the end,” and what appeals to me is saving people, myself included, from the damage these morons will wreak. Was that really hard to figure out?
We are curious as well. The problem is, curiosity killed the cat, point #1. Especially on this blawg. Also, a question should be followed by a question mark; otherwise the unproven/assumed premise upon which leads to the begging of [the prior] question is not clear, as here. In other words, a clusterf*ck. Is it really a question if there is no question mark? Inquiring Minds again. The question mark is assumed/presumed.
Now we go to Wiki to find out what “begging the question” really is all about–breaking the rules–and to our amazement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question,… it’s not that simple or that clear. It is pretty damn complicated. Aristotle in the original Greek is attributed. It’s an “informal” and not a “formal” fallacy we’re entertaining, but not uncommon apparently in everyday discourse. Antonin Scalia–yes, the S.C. justice–gets caught in an example from the bench. We are scarcely surprised.
Our busyness agent says, there are three kinds of people in the world: (i) Those who make things happen. (ii) Those who watch things happen. And (iii), those who wonder what happened! Right about now, we fall into the third category. (Not the first time?)