Thursday, October 3, 2019

They



You can’t force someone to use a particular appellation. For instance, a female may desire to be referred to as “they,” but it’s a free country, right?  If you so desire you can use “her.” However, let’s say that you have a job at a university which is not Chicago, which has lately established an important beachhead in the war against political correctness and our modern day Newspeak ("University of Chicago Strikes Back Against Campus Political Correctness," NYT, 8/26/19) then you have no choice except to think “her”—which is come to think of it the title of a movie about a guy who falls in love with an operating system. Remember when Ms. was an innovation? Now Ms. has degenerated into being a mere piece of punctuation which is only the province of the postman, who never rings twice. If you remember “mister” is something that was whispered by street urchins in Little Rascals movies. The fact is that if you happen to be a time traveler and you set down on the planet in say 50 or l00 years, you’re going to be challenged in social situations. Hey mister or Ms., it’s likely culture is going to have evolved way beyond simply calling “her," "they.” What about anachronisms like “your honor” or “your highness” are they grandfathered in—as far as politically respectful speech is concerned? Let’s put it this way. You can get into a lot of trouble for doing something big and you can also get into a big mess for doing something rather minor. Which way do you want it?

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