Pronoun Trouble

Anyone else going a little stir crazy? My quarantined mind wanders off and contemplates strange things sometimes, and so I write them down. If I had a blog, I’d share them…oh wait, I do!!

At the risk of sounding like the old guy who yells at kids to get off his lawn, I don’t understand the choice of the pronouns They/Them to represent non-binary people. Why did they (the group) choose they (the pronoun)? It’s really confusing. I never know what they they (the group and the pronoun) are referring to.

I get why they (the group) need a different pronoun. I guess I should say I get why them did. If you’re not a He or a She, you need a different pronoun. If I had a vote, I’d have chosen something else, like Ze or Che, or something that didn’t already mean something else. If you ask me if Ze went to the store, I know you are referring to a differently gendered person. If you ask me if they went to the store, I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about. It’s even worse when reading. Every time the plural pronouns they or them show up where it should be a singular pronoun, it makes my head hurt. To be fair, people using less instead of fewer also drives me nuts, as in “less calories”. It’s fewer calories, dammit. I don’t care if everyone uses it incorrectly, grammar counts. Did them do this on purpose?

Back in the 70’s when women didn’t want to use an identifier based on marital status, they (women, not a differently gendered person) chose Miz (Ms.). It was a new word. You saw it, said it, or read it and you knew exactly what it meant. Perhaps when them chose they them intentionally wanted us to have to puzzle out who the they them chose was? Are you seeing the problem here?

I realize I don’t have a vote, and I’ll just have to get used to it, but honestly, I wish they (whomever chose it, not a differently gendered person, although it probably was a differently gendered person) had chosen something else. Seriously, grammar is hard enough and now they, er, them are making it way more complicated. I’m going to need a lot of aspirin.

p.s. Get off my lawn you damn kids

-Doc

One comment

  1. I agree with you. I think it’s okay to have a different pronoun, but breaking the singular/plural rule is just too hard. I have a colleague who goes by “they/them/theirs” and every time when someone says “they are coming,” my natural reaction is always “who else?” I think it can be done but it would require so much education and adjustment from everybody else to accommodate them that I think it is unrealistic to expect it to ever catch on.

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