pronouns gone mad

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu May 8 06:59:42 UTC 2014


I've already peeved about this, a couple or three years ago. I came across
it in an academic paper by an MD who alternated between "he" and "she" as
the pronoun for "baby," when he could simply have used "it," the sex of the
baby being of no consequence, needless to say.

As for Arden, it - "Arden" is too unisex for me to make a decision; even
"Wilson" is unisex, anymore - is an embarrassment to us cat-lovers.


On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 11:01 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      pronouns gone mad
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> God forbid your gendered pronouns make you into an unwitting sexist.
>
> Arden Moore of Yahoo! today:
>
> "If you need a sign it is time to trim your cat's nails, nothing is clearer
> than when he perches on your lap, purrs and starts kneading your thighs
> with her front paws. But this is also a sign of affection. Experts say that
> this action beckons your adult cat back to a safe, welcoming memory when
> she was nuzzling his mother for milk as a newborn kitten. He is being
> affectionate and a bit nostalgic. "
>
>
> Back in the eighties I had one or two freshman who did this - out of
> thousands - before being corrected.
>
> Now it's a  bylined Web correspondent.
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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