AE: Entering the new year, something tragic happened in the world of grammar and language usage. Over 200 linguists of the American Dialect Society met in Washington, D.C. to choose their “Word of the Year.” They overwhelmingly chose the singular use of the pronoun “they.”
Singular they, as it is called, is not some common usage found in sectors of the American public that has gained a significant following and found its way into the English language. Such is the normal way new word usage gains acceptance. There is certainly nothing wrong with this natural and organic manner of growth.
What happened here, however, was something different. This new usage is politically-correct jargon that is being forced on the public. Singular they now refers to those sexually-confused individuals who do not wish to be called he or she.
On The Price is Right, Drew Carrey will say “we have one more contestant – who are they?”
Seriously, I used to have to write government regulations. This was a frequent area of concern. References to a singular contractor would use “they” or “them” to avoid a sexist “him”.
Soneone once suggested the generic pronoun “(s)he” a variation of “he/she”.
Another pet peeve is the use of the singular verb “is” when referring to “data” (plural of the singular “datum”).
It is well past time to build a wall around some useless place, like say new York, and create a safe haven for the perpetually butt-hurt.
They took this:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_9/186-8313117-8290322?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=warriner+english+grammar+and+composition&sprefix=warriner%27%2Cstripbooks%2C280
And have been for the last thirty years, slowly picking away with outright goal of decimating the English language with books like this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cambridge-Grammar-English-Language/dp/0521431468
Grammar is out, linguistics and semantics rule the day. Say “The carpet is brown.” and they”ll explain to till their blue in face how “brown” is the subject and “carpet” is a prescriptive complement. You can’t understand half the sh&^ they puke out of their vocabulary of intellectual superiority on matter of “dialects” and “regional this and regional that.” They are gone, lost in the New Age of Thought and Design. Our language is dying.
I’m on the front lines. They call a phrase a clause; they barely grasp the ideas about how those phrases and clauses work in sentence. Tell this young crowd today how an infinitive adverb phrase can modify a single adjective, verb, or another adverb word in the sentence, and watching them be taken away in a straitjacket. And don’t ever, ever try to explain how you can show what all the words in a sentence, how they function and what’s their purpose with the Reed-Kellogg Diagramming method–they’ll scream and howl and pull their hair out with such heresy. It’s going to get worse, or as they say: “They be its can whatever me and yous wants this words to means.” Ebonics is rocket science compared to what’s coming.
I am reading Charles Dickens, Will Durant and William Manchester these days. For some variety maybe some Faulkner.
Treat yourself to rereading the first section of “The last Lion.”
Now that there is some writin’ !
Ahem.
“This is data.” *Throws statistical analysis on desk*
“Those are datums.” *Points to two datum A and datum B on blueprint*
I’ve always had good luck with English teachers — all of them female — and never had one who didn’t treat me kindly. I’ve had two good-lookers invite me over to their house (though I declined both times). And this, even though I never really gave a shit about the rules of the English language. Always got good grades in English class, even though I never learned all the rules.
It’s like my great, great, great, great, great grandmother used to say:
“Fuck the English!”
Who is this “Soneone” ? Perhaps an English expert?
🙂
“And that there is why I miss the edit button!” *Points to the superfluous word ‘two’ in the second example above and goes back to bed*
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sassenach
I have been reading and re-reading “The Last Lion” for the past year. It is a 3-part trilogy-biography of the great Winston.
There are so many characters in his life (both historical and personal), that I am keeping a glossary to keep them all straight. Churchill believed in the British Empire and was the last great imperialist, in an age when Imperialism became a dirty word.
Churchill wasn’t perfect, but he would be appalled that the UK is turning into a second-world nation, only 51 years after his death.
I read all 3 volumes of The last Lion by William Manchester about a year ago. It’s the best biography of Winston Churchill available and I highly recommend this long biography of his life to anyone who cares to learn about Churchill. it is long about 2500 pages or so but well worth reading. I am currently reading a lot of Walter Wangerin’s books that some one on IOTW praised and recommended a few months ago. Great books, I just ordered a couple of them from Amazon and a copy of Beyond Thirty by Edgar Rice Burroughs just because. I had a copy of it when I was a kid and found that they had new reprints available so I ordered it. I need a good potboiler now and then and I love ERB. And speaking of they, Clifford D. Simak’s book They Walked Like Men is one of my favorite Clifford D. Simak books.
So…if I get the gist of the article, “they” means
“mentally ill sexual deviant, homo or otherwise”.