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<h2 class="gmail-blog__title">Pronoun Challenge in Ann Arbor</h2>
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<p><a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/files/2016/10/pronouns8.png"><img class="gmail-alignleft gmail-size-chronicle-medium gmail-wp-image-42286" alt="pronouns8" src="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/files/2016/10/pronouns8-300x235.png"></a>I’ve
learned to be suspicious whenever any change in language is described
as inconvenient. It’s inconvenient, when you think about it, to have so
many forms of the past tense in English. It’s inconvenient that we in
America spell a number of words differently from the British. When the
honorific <i>Ms</i>. was introduced in the 1960s, people complained that
it was inconvenient to have to insert a new option into the list of
choices on forms, or to wonder how a woman wanted to be addressed.
So-called inconvenient changes also become, rather quickly, the butt of
jokes made mostly at the expense of those who think that, after all, the
change they have in mind isn’t really all that inconvenient.</p>
<p>The latest surge of complaints about inconvenience coupled with jokes
at the expense of change-makers arises with the University of
Michigan’s newly designed forms for students choosing classes. As <a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/09/28/um-gender-pronouns/91222056/"><em>The Detroit News</em></a> reported:</p>
<blockquote><p>UM students can select pronouns such as he, she, him, her, <a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/05/16/change-mustnt-be-a-burden/">ze</a> — a gender neutral pronoun — or other pronouns they identify with starting this week.</p>
<p>The change is so students can let others know which pronoun they
identify with and expect others to use when referencing them, Provost
Martha Pollack and Vice President for Student Life Royster Harper wrote
to students on the Ann Arbor campus.</p>
<p>“Faculty members play a vital role in ensuring all of our community
feels valued, respected, and included,” Pollack and Harper wrote.</p>
<p>“Asking about and correctly using someone’s designated pronoun is one
of the most basic ways to show respect for their identity and to
cultivate an environment that respects all gender identities.”</p></blockquote>
<p>I don’t know the percentage of students who chose <i>he</i> or <i>she</i>
as their preferred pronoun, but I suspect it was well over 90 percent
and included transgender students, most of whom identify as male or
female. If I’m right, two truths emerge. First, any inconvenience is
slight, perhaps at the level of accommodation for <a href="https://nfb.org/blindness-statistics">visually impaired </a>students.
(I’m not naming alternate gender identity as an impairment, just
talking accommodation and statistics.) Second, those who do list a
pronoun other than <i>he</i> or <i>she</i> are voicing a strong
preference for how they wish others to address them — a strong
statement, that is, of their identity in the face of great odds. So we
have a deeply desirable accommodation at little cost.</p>
<p>But from the backlash and the jokes, you wouldn’t think so. The top-rated comments on the<em> News</em> report about the pronoun option read,</p>
<blockquote><p>When these folks get out of the U with whatever degree
the U feels fit to give them (after all, they will soon find something
offensive about sturctured (sic) departments, degrees, such as
engineering, chemistry, physics etc. etc) .. they will encounter the
real world where no one actually gives a tinkers damn about such idiocy.</p>
<p>. . .</p>
<p>Good luck, snowflakes. One day you’ll figure out that when reality becomes optional, totalitarianism becomes inevitable.</p></blockquote>
<p>Soon followed the jokes. The chairman of the board of governors of the right-wing <a href="http://www.yaf.org/news/yaf-chairman-hilariously-trolls-schools-pronoun-police/">Young America Foundation</a>, Grant Strobl, a student at the University of Michigan, logged onto his portal and chose the preferred pronoun <i>His Majesty</i>. In an interview with <a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/29230/">The College Fix</a>,
he quipped, “I henceforth shall be referred to as: His Majesty, Grant
Strobl. I encourage all U-M students to go onto Wolverine Access, and
insert the identity of their dreams.”</p>
<p>Funny … right?</p>
<p>Apparently the denizens of the website <a href="http://totalfratmove.com/personal-pronoun-his-majesty-michigans-campus/">Total Frat Move</a> think so. They referred to Mr. Strobl’s having accomplished “a brilliant troll job” and lambasted any who thought otherwise:</p>
<blockquote><p>These gender pronoun snobs are the worst. He she ze xe
vey ir hir het hesh ne himer shkle enn heshe hann herm. … Thanks to
“gender fluidity,” everyday is a fun game of “let’s solve the puzzle in
my pants.”</p></blockquote>
<p>The irony here is that the jokesters are the ones inserting
inconvenience into the process, urging anyone looking for a snigger to
exploit the system until the university gives up on it.</p>
<p>But maybe they won’t give up. It took 20 years, in the end, but even conservative William Safire of <i>The New York Times</i>, confessing that it “broke his heart” to do so, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/05/magazine/on-language-goodbye-sex-hello-gender.html?pagewanted=1">conceded</a> in 1984 that <i>Ms.</i> was the most reasonable honorific to use with women who wished to be addressed as <em>Ms.</em></p>
<p>Meanwhile, I hope that Mr. Strobl gets his wish and finds himself
addressed as His Majesty in every recommendation that his professors
write for him to potential employers. It will be a fine joke, or
something.</p><a href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/10/03/preferable-pronouns/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=25602dfa364a4b3ea1b335b5e799cee5&elq=75afc5df4d104b94a20e2a262a87c132&elqaid=10969&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4186">http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/10/03/preferable-pronouns/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=25602dfa364a4b3ea1b335b5e799cee5&elq=75afc5df4d104b94a20e2a262a87c132&elqaid=10969&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4186</a><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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