Editorial Speedbump

Grammar Nazism

I know I said I wasn’t going to do the Speedbump thing anymore, but that’s only because I was sick of correcting stupid spelling- and grammar mistakes.

But this is different.  (My game, my rules.)

Specifically, I want to address an editorial quirk that has me reaching for the 1911:  this nonsense of using the plural “they/their” instead of “he/his” or “she/her”.

Now there are times when this device is appropriate, e.g. when using generalities such as “Anyone should be able to call their congressman an asshole”, where usage of “his” instead of “their” might be taken to mean that only men may call their congressman an asshole, which is clearly not the case.  (We used to be able to use “his” in these cases, where the word was understood to mean either sex, but it seems that in our ultra-sensitive times, even innocent words like “mankind” can be adjudged as sexisss by the Ultra-Sensitive Set.)

Anyway, here’s a perfect example where this androgynous practice becomes ridiculous and in fact can cause confusion:


(I’m not at all interested in the content of the article, of course.)

Note that the use of “they” and “their” could easily be interpreted that both Ore and his sister committed suicide, which isn’t the case — unless they dressed him in tiny Pride pants and read out a statement of his sexuality after he popped the magic pills, that is.

But that didn’t happen.  Only the sister whacked herself, so the headline should have been written as follows:

Simple, with perfect clarity.  But this woke nonsense of using the impersonal plural terms has the effect of confusing the issue — not that the cloth-eared editors and writers could care, because who needs clarity when feeeeelings are at stake?

Tossers.  And a pox on them for making me irritated enough to have to write about this bullshit.

11 comments

  1. That shit grinds my gears too. When I encounter it I go no further, and move on. Fuk Em Ded. Assholes.

  2. One could propose that they/their be replaced by it/its, but then they’d go fuck it up with an apostrophe.
    .

  3. I would have said, “Anyone should be able to call his or her congressman an asshole”

  4. *We used to be able to use “his” in these cases, where the word was understood to mean either sex, but it seems that in our ultra-sensitive times, even innocent words like “mankind” can be adjudged as sexisss by the Ultra-Sensitive Set.*

    I still, with malice aforethought, use the third-person masculine singular pronoun in cases like this, explicitly because it’s likely to trigger the Woketard Brigade. The fact that it’s grammatically correct is just icing on the Schadenfreudelicious cake.

  5. Not sure if you were aware that this specific case was not the usual “plural that should be singular”, but was because the decedent was “non-binary”.

    1. Good point, RayG, especially since the word “his” (twice) and “he” were already used in the headline. But to make it absolutely clear, if “they/their” must be used the latter part should have read “…his late non-binary sibling after they took their own life.”

    2. I have no idea what this “non-binary” means, but whatever it is, I’m not buying it.

      Pick one, or STFU.

  6. Two things:
    First – I’m not using your pronouns, so fuck off.
    Second – It’s not in my copy of Stunk & White, so fuck off.

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