1 Comment
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Chris Fox's avatar

Impact and target.

"Invite" is probably lost, but I will never accept any of the four I mentioned and I will shiver to death in a Maytag box under an overpass before I will use the singular "they," or let it go by unremarked.

I learned Russian when I was 13. I was a smart 8th grader and the school allowed me to take the course even though it was for 9th grade on up, because I was going out of my mind as an 8th grader. Anyway.

I drew a little table; rows, 1st, 2nd, 3rd person. Columns, singular and plural. Where is the other "you?" OK, now I know that "thou" is deprecated.

Then I heard someone say a sentence pairing "someone" and "they" and instantly I had a splitting headache. Realized everyone did this. I never used they as a singular ever again; I am 56 years older now and have never once had to come up with any awkward grammar to avoid it, in fact I can usually use fewer words.

Along came "trans" and those "nonbinary" retards and suddenly "he" and "she" have all but vanished. No, I am not giving in to that.

I am certified in ESL all the way to teaching C2 and for eight years I taught my students (Vietnam) that "they" was used incorrectly by most Americans and not to adopt it.

We do what we can.

Expand full comment