pronouns gone mad

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu May 8 21:47:28 UTC 2014


At 5/8/2014 05:33 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

>When did 'peeve' transform into a verb??
>
>DanG

1901.

Joel



>On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 2:59 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: pronouns gone mad
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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."
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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