I'm sorry; I can't speak that way

[JimG]

"Conservative columnist Rod Dreher mentioned in a recent lecture that he knows a high-level executive who believes “it’s just a matter of time” before he will be forced to sign a petition signaling his agreement with the current “politically correct” agenda or lose his job. He is prepared to lose his job.

So, too, in less dramatic fashion, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before someone demands that I agree to employ the new “non-discriminatory” gender-neutral pronouns, ze, xe, zir, and all the rest (discriminatory against no one except those who don’t agree to use them)."

The new grammar. continued here.

 

[LiamQ]

I hope that people will one day realize, before it’s too late, that the left is all about totalitarianism. Since they use emotional manipulation and not reason, they have no way to interact with opposing positions other than by snuffing them out with political power.

 

[tweedlealice]

"Conservative columnist Rod Dreher mentioned in a recent lecture that he knows a high-level executive who believes “it’s just a matter of time” before he will be forced to sign a petition signaling his agreement with the current “politically correct” agenda or lose his job. He is prepared to lose his job.

So, too, in less dramatic fashion, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before someone demands that I agree to employ the new “non-discriminatory” gender-neutral pronouns, ze, xe, zir, and all the rest (discriminatory against no one except those who don’t agree to use them)."

The new grammar. continued here.

Hi,
We have first amendment rights as well. Those words are not in your vocabulary. One has no hate for the LGBT community. But societies rules are present for safety and security. Transgenders may feel awkward in a boys room but their body shape is the same, until they mutilate themselves w surgery. Until surgery is done, they stay in men’s rooms. Some concern is for heterosexual boys,saying they are transgender just to gawk at girls in different stages of undress. States are suing the atty general to dismiss this law.
God be with us on this trial. Shine your light into the darkness. Change the hearts who are demanding this sharing of bathrooms. “IF WE BEING EVIL KNOW HOW TO GIVE GOOD GIFTS TO YOUR CHILDREN.HOW MUCH MORE THEN,WILL YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER
GIVE THOSE WHO ASK. !!” We ask to stop this insanity. CONVICT w your Holy Spirit, the
Hearts of all Christians in Congress that they should vote guided by you. Father, you lost your Son to a horrible death so you could reestablish a Holy relationship w you. Thank you for loving us so. Jesus you walked the Via Dolorosa down the road to Calvary. Look at the sin in this country. Forgive us. Have mercy on us. Enlighten confused people to your thinking Lord. thank you.
Tweedlealice ray:t2:

 

[Rhubarb]

I’m always up for a good bit of critical thought. On one hand, I’m a bleeding heart liberal and am sympathetic to political correctness (of a sort) but on the other hand, I abhor censorship and thought control. I can’t help but think the author is being a teensy bit hyperbolic. I think this for two reasons. The only concrete example given was students saying “he and/or she”, and then hypothetical examples given are the xe/xir/ze/etc. pronouns.

I’ve seen the gender neutral new pronouns spoken about but have never seen anyone seriously insist upon them. And I hang with and lurk online in many very liberal circles. I’ve known many trans people, and genderqueer people,and have had the pleasure of talking to many many more and nobody has ever taken those pronouns seriously. Though I do know some who prefer to use they/them/they’re as a general rule in talking about any people, cis- or transgendered. I’m sure there are people out there that do want to use xe/xim/ze/xyr/etc. But from the evidence I’ve see that group is overstated, overestimated, and used like a boogieman.

Now the concrete example I am well aware of. I personally use “s/he” when discussing anyone of whose gender I’m unsure. I don’t think this is an inconvenience to be thoughtful of others. And there are good reasons to think that it is harmful to use male pronouns and assumptions as the default. It instills an idea that ‘male’ is the standard, the norm, and the expected. Some people say “that’s silly. People read too much into it” or the like. And for those people, maybe it’s true. But there are others who can be affected by this. Is it subtle? Yes But it’s been shown to re-enforce that men are in charge. They’re what matters. They make the rules. They’re the first-among-equals of humanity.

I guess what political correctness comes down to me is being kind to one another. People seem to have no problem asking me “do you prefer Joshua, or Josh, or something else?” I know people who really would prefer people use their middle name because their first name is full of painful memories. But we don’t go “no, no. You are Christine. Don’t deny what you are. Louise? That’s ridiculous. Your birth certificate dictates your name, not how you identify yourself.” I get most people here don’t want to refer to trans people as their preferred pronouns. (I don’t agree with it, but I know what your reasons are) But is it denying who they are by saying they and them if it is something they care about?

 

[Neofight]

"Conservative columnist Rod Dreher mentioned in a recent lecture that he knows a high-level executive who believes “it’s just a matter of time” before he will be forced to sign a petition signaling his agreement with the current “politically correct” agenda or lose his job. He is prepared to lose his job.

So, too, in less dramatic fashion, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before someone demands that I agree to employ the new “non-discriminatory” gender-neutral pronouns, ze, xe, zir, and all the rest (discriminatory against no one except those who don’t agree to use them)."

The new grammar. continued here.

If you give in, its not because you are forced to do so, but because you agree to do so.

New personal pronouns are not going to change, even through legislation. And its not a matter of rejection of “political correctness” that makes the change unlikely. Its the reluctance or cognitive inability to make such linguistic changes instantly.

A good example the change from “Christmas” to “Holiday”…Holiday Tree vice Christmas Tree, Holiday Party vice Christmas Party, Holiday Break vice Christmas Break, Happy Holidays vice Merry Christmas, etc., etc., etc. The word police are not going to come and arrest you if you don’t make the switch!

Every year we see the web cluttered with “I’m not shopping at,” or, “I’m not purchasing”, because they will not allow employees to say “Merry Christmas”…even more ridiculous was the huge (faux) controversy over a coffee shop only using plain red cups during the Christmas season.

Those who say the day is coming when they will lose their jobs over using He and She are rattling sabers, and thumping chests. So, if you just throw your hands up and say, “I must”, don’t blame society for being overbearing, blame yourself for being weak.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Who came up with these new pronouns? I just saw something about this the other
day. It doesn’t make sense to me. This is for speaking also or just writing?

I hope we won’t have to use them.

 

[XXI_4]

Who came up with these new pronouns? I just saw something about this the other
day. It doesn’t make sense to me. This is for speaking also or just writing?

I hope we won’t have to use them.

I think it originated in several universities. Vanderbilt (link) and University of Michigan (link) have policies that would seem to indicate the usage is required.

New York City, however, takes it further (emphasis mine):

Today’s guidance lists several ways employers, landlords, and business owners could violate the Law on the basis of gender identity and expression, including:

**Intentionally failing to use an individual’s preferred name, pronoun or title. ** For example, repeatedly calling a transgender woman “him” or “Mr.” when she has made it clear that she prefers female pronouns and a female title…

…Violations of the New York City Human Rights Law could result in civil penalties of up to $125,000 for violations, and up to $250,000 for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct. There is no limit to the amount of compensatory damages the Commission may award to a victim of discrimination.

SOURCE

I found this article of a student choosing to use “His Majesty” as his personal pronoun rather amusing…

 

[3DOCTORS]

If the English language had had a singular gender-neutral personal pronoun all along, many things would be less confrontational now. I’m not PC by any means, but at least the whole kerfluffle wouldn’t have landed in the laps of the litigation-happy lawyers.

Alas, those pronouns failed to materialize before the current controversy. “It” is too impersonal; “they” is the closest thing but is grammatically incorrect. The “xe/xir” ones seem rather heavy-handed and awkward to learn. Like the metric system which the U.S. was trying to convert to back when I was in grade school (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth). That went smashingly well . . .

Even though I have my deep reservations about the sudden rise in transgenderism and my hypotheses on what’s behind the phenomenon (which are not PC, generally), I would be willing to consider the possibility of a neutral pronoun. I’d feel more comfortable with that than with using the opposite sex pronoun. However, if it is going to be a matter of strong-arm tactics and fear of draconian punishments for noncompliance, I feel resentful about the whole business and so, I venture to guess, do many people who are basically decent but are being pushed to the limit by the thought police in our current social climate.

It would also, as long as I’m on the subject of transgender integration into society, be a gesture of good faith from the trans folk if they would simply allow public bathroom facilities to be modified to provide single-person bathrooms and be content to use those (hey, I find those bathrooms to be more private and comfortable to use under certain circumstances myself - they’re just nicer and roomier - why not just go with it?).

But in this social engineering push, it seems that thoughtfulness, courtesy, and problem-solving brainstorming are left behind in the rush to ram through policies that are forceful and overreaching. I call power play.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I think it originated in several universities. Vanderbilt (link) and University of Michigan (link) have policies that would seem to indicate the usage is required.

New York City, however, takes it further (emphasis mine):

I found this article of a student choosing to use “His Majesty” as his personal pronoun rather amusing…

I do remember the news about that but didn’t pay a lot of attention to what it was about. now I get it.

 

[JimG]

If the English language had had a singular gender-neutral personal pronoun all along, many things would be less confrontational now. I’m not PC by any means, but at least the whole kerfluffle wouldn’t have landed in the laps of the litigation-happy lawyers.

Actually, the English language did have a gender neutral pronoun all along. When both sexes were intended, the word used was “he.” If an English language pronouncement said something like “if anyone says that the Persons of the Trinity are not of one essence, let him be anathema,” the “he” referred to anyone, not just men, and that was well understood from the context.

Likewise “man” is a generic noun, which can also be used singularly. When John Donne wrote “No man is an island,” he did not intend to infer that a woman might be an island. He was speaking of the whole of humanity using the generic term “man.”

For the first half of my life, (and for centuries prior) the use of such generic pronouns was well understood in every form of writing. In the second half of my life, such generic usage began to be rather forcibly withdrawn, making business and personal writing more difficult and awkward. I often find myself using “he or she” for no good reason but political correctness, where before, “he” would have sufficed and would have been perfectly understood in a generic manner.

The transgender pronouns are another matter. But it is a linguistic lie to refer to biological males as “she” or “her,” or to biological females as “he” or “him.”

 

[Della]

The neutral pronoun used to be he, him, his, believe it or not, before the feminists got their bras in a twist over it. Those pronouns were only used in writing, though, not in addressing people in person.

Once upon a time, long, long ago it seems now, women dressed in dresses and men in pants. It was pretty easy to tell who was who. If a man was dressed as a woman, he was addressed as “she” in the belief that only a woman would publically dress as a woman. Women who dressed in pants still wore something feminine with it because that’s what women wore, and not men. That’s no longer the case. Still, the whole identifying oneself as a different gender from one’s biology is a matter for psychologists and physicians not politicians.

I meet few people on a daily basis, but if a person presents himself to me as a man, I address him as such and the same if a person presents herself as a woman–why should it be up to me to determine what the person really is? I’m certainly not going to demand s/he prove it to my satisfaction.

As for made-up pronouns meant to force definitions onto us, I’ll never use them–it’s just plain silly. Just as silly as banning Christmas Santas from saying “Ho, ho, ho” for fear of calling women “whores,” which the PC crowd tried to force on everyone a few years ago. It was a whole lot of hoopla over nothing then, and so is this.

 

[styrgwillidar]

Remember the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

It was a parable/prophesy about the use of social intimidation to get people to deny obvious truths.

We’re living it.

Summation from Wikipedia:

"… a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that they don’t see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as “unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent”. Finally, a child cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” "

 

[HelenRose]

I often wonder how a man can say he is a woman when he has no compassion for a woman who has been raped but finds that she must share such an intimate place has a public bathroom with a man.

I often wonder how a man can say he is a woman when he can not understand the concern that a mother feels about having a man in a bathroom with her daughter.

These are legitimate concerns. A woman can understand this but a man who has his own agenda to force his will on others will not find this a concern at all.

 

[Theo520]

I often wonder how a man can say he is a woman when he has no compassion for a woman who has been raped but finds that she must share such an intimate place has a public bathroom with a man.

I often wonder how a man can say he is a woman when he can not understand the concern that a mother feels about having a man in a bathroom with her daughter.

These are legitimate concerns. A woman can understand this but a man who has his own agenda to force his will on others will not find this a concern at all.

In a previous volunteer role. know of a convicted sex offender who decided he was transgender. When the memo went out that all staff/help were to call him a ‘her’, I was glad I never received it and could deny the need to comply. I then heard the feds had agreed to pay for ‘her’ sex change.

 

[Qoeleth]

I hope that people will one day realize, before it’s too late, that the left is all about totalitarianism. Since they use emotional manipulation and not reason, they have no way to interact with opposing positions other than by snuffing them out with political power.

But a lot of ‘language totalitarians’, who demand gender neutrality, are not really authentically ‘left’- they are privileged members of the capitalist class.

‘Political correctness’ is a tool used by rich and privileged elites to attempt to control the language (and hence thought), of their ‘underlings’ (as they see it), and thereby destroy cultural vitality, and assimilate everyone into ‘their’ capitalist system.

 

[Lion_IRC]

What will they do about languages which assign a masculine/feminine attribute to nouns and adjectives? Books are boys. Chairs are girls.

 

[Qoeleth]

What will they do about languages which assign a masculine/feminine attribute to nouns and adjectives? Books are boys. Chairs are girls.

Forsitan optima solutio foret inventa in reversione Latinae, saltem liturgia!

 

[HelenRose]

What will they do about languages which assign a masculine/feminine attribute to nouns and adjectives? Books are boys. Chairs are girls.

Feminine and masculine endings on words have nothing to do with sex. They are simply a construct of some languages. But you never know about these anti-sex people. They are nuts and will somehow try to make an issue of it.

 

[Lion_IRC]

I don’t think anyone is conflating gender with sex (sexual activity.)
And it’s not specifically the ending of the word which differentiates their gender.
German words like löffel and gabel and messer don’t rely on spelling or ending.
It’s the word - the thing itself. Masculine, feminine, neuter. Fork, spoon, knife.

My question was about whether some LGBTQI activists might be so fanatical that they take their PC war on language into this area. #reeducation_camps. #thought_control

 

[HelenRose]

I don’t think anyone is conflating gender with sex (sexual activity.)
And it’s not specifically the ending of the word which differentiates their gender.
German words like löffel and gabel and messer don’t rely on spelling or ending.
It’s the word - the thing itself. Masculine, feminine, neuter. Fork, spoon, knife.

My question was about whether some LGBTQI activists might be so fanatical that they take their PC war on language into this area. #reeducation_camps. #thought_control

Who knows what they will be offended about next.