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Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dennis Baron Whats Your Pronoun 20240
Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dennis Baron Whats Your Pronoun 20240
CSPAN2 Dennis Baron Whats Your Pronoun July 13, 2024
On valentines day we have the largest event after hours the city of most cerebral of the hour. Therell be poetry, trivia and interaction sobering results, a lover, friend you want to turn into a lover to the special edition of library after hours. February 25, we have two leading negotiators of the un
Paris Agreement
who will join the organizer to provide individuals can take to fend of climate disaster so those are events that are just this month. Our amazing season also includes a tribute to
Toni Morrisons
beloved and partnership with the
Schaumburg Center
and a discussion with writers reflecting on landmark cases. We have talks with so many morsi you can learn about the programs by setting up a mailing list which is on the website nypl. Org. Libraries are so great if you dont have a library card, you should because you can check out materials and search the catalog including the wonderful books that have been recommended and you can find them on the program. The correspondence and you can access all of those with your library cards. So, to get a sense of the format for the conversation, diana will speak for about 45 minutes after which they will take a few questions from the audience. Remember theres a difference te between questions and declarations please join me in welcoming diana and dennis. [applause] thank you for coming to the
Public Library
in manhattan to talk about the new book. [applause] did anybody feel excited to read this book . Me too. I was excited because i was a journalist and worked in media with publications on print and digital publication as well as a person that writes about issues i yielded so many comments and inquiries of what it means to be transgender or gender nonconforming connected to the change in language for people that are altering the way at which theyre living their lives and the world and factors like names and pronoun. So much of the feedback has been confusion and criticism of a chain she or new aspect that is occurring. Sometimes theres no problem and people are fine and other times theres controversies that surround the way in which we are seeing language change this
Transgender Movement
that has occurred over the last ten odd years. When i saw this book and it was a historical approach this just needed to be written and who better to be able to supply an argument or a physician and history and an hour just while you dont directly deal with these issues your self, someone like me is benefited. Id like you to tell us about this book and what made you want to write it. Thank you first of all for the introduction and for agreeing to be here tonight and for all of you who came to listen to us, i came upon pronouns quite by accident many years ago when i was researching
Something Else
that i cant even remember what it was. They found something they didnt like or something that was missing and filled they could make it right. We dont have enough words. We have too many. There was a guy in 1792,
James Anderson
who fortunately was an economist rather than a linguist and decided english needed 13 genders. 13. Fortunately they didnt provide 13 different pronouns or any pronouns but his contribution to the linguistic landscape of 18th century scotland went completely ignored. Probably that was a good thing because we dont have enough trouble memorizing the grammar rules in school if we have to multiply that what would that bo to the sat. One of the things i discovered starting in the 18th and early 19th century, people were noticing a missing word. Or they were noticing that the word was missing and it was a third person singular pronoun that wasnt gender specific that referred to people. Nobody uses it for people particularly for adult people unless they mean to insult the person they are talking about. Starting around the middle of the century, i noticed people began clinging onto them to fill the missing word got. This was in 2018. The earliest discussion account of 1789. They were not fo brandnew. Interesting. It wasnt associated with trans issues or gender nonconforming issues. At the time, partly we didnt have a vocabulary developed enough to talk about this issue. Its not that people were not aware of gender nonconforming persons, but it just wasnt a subject of grammatical concern at the time. There may have been other issues at the time, but people started claiming words in 1841 we found the first words pronoun just the letter e. , the person who claimed it apparently didnt find practicing medicine very satisfying so they would write a grammar book in his spare time. He broke this grammar book and only one copy of it survived interestingly enough. Nobody in their right mind is going to buy a book that a doctor wrote. So that is very i feel like that says a lot. And even theres a lot of ignorance around these kind of issues on both sides. Because unless someone takes the issue in the construction and integration of the new gender pronouns and to the american lexicon or wherever, i also am not that well informed about the history of the third or non gendered pronoun. So, its interesting to add that code foboth for people who may e interested already in supporting and people who are very critical and questioning if this is even possible to do. Having a historical precedent has a certain kinisa certain kin to the use of the language. Maybe it isnt necessary how do you approach this idea of thinking of something that can be right or wrong . Its what they do, wha we doy and what we write. Its what they actually do and sometimes there is a disconnect between the rules we think we are supposed to operate by and what we produce a. Im more interested in learning how people use language and how they feel it may be the first from what they are suppose wereo be doing because we are aware we are breaking a rule and we dont know why that will lose their other people are breaking the rule for example using they as a singular, highly controversial. I was talking to somebody and he said this is great. People should be allowed to use the pronouns they want to use that singularly it is just wro wrong. He was interviewing me. What do you say when somebody has that attitude. Been around since the 75. It wasnt in the 12th century. We didnt have pronouns that began tah. They came in a little bit later. We used it to singularly alltime. People that object to singular use cingular. You mean they use cingular. Whoever they are. [laughter] youve got a phone call, did they leave a message. They just say that. It is such a clear example in our conversations to getting up on the stage. We were discussing it and i thought that it is appropriate for what you were saying about how its something people dont take issue with, but then they take issue when it is associated with gender and other mores that are conflicting with them but theyve now attached. Language is often a substitute. We can agree what is right and wrong. We dont have to talk about the fact everybody here should speak english. That is one example. The official
English Movement
argues when in rome, do what the romans do. When youre in the u. S. , youve are expected to speak english and if you dont speak english, go back where you came from. It is a standard. Its okay to criticize peoples language but it doesnt quite. It didnt used to be quite so normal to criticize where people came from. Before 1924 it was okay to do it. So, if the pronoun tammy a standing for attitude towards the gender nonconforming just as it is used to celebrate non binary people it can be used to attack them. So, within a conversation i feel like it is an interesting pairing because my work focuses so highly on the transgender rights and culture and politics in the
United States
specifically so dealing with the different perspectives in politics and communities across the country for years now. Youve specifically havent been focused on these issues to my understanding its just too have noticed the culture is changing the aspect of it and so i find that very interesting and useful because i wonder how in your experience part of wanting to write this book must have been inspired it was different kinds of pronouns may be in the classroom outside of the classroom and in culture. What is that like for you as a linguist that is focusing on that from a linguistic perspective specifically and not so much the transgender rights issue . They are having conversations about the speech. Im happy to make this contribution at the time not just pronouns with a particularr kind of person singular pronouns there are stories about them in the newspapers every week i used to tell people you go to a party and they say what they do. I would say im an english teacher and they would go though a [inaudible] i am an english teacher and he said that was my worst subject. [laughter] and then he said to be obligatory i better watch my grammar and as he watched his grammar i watched his hand tightened on the drill but all of a sudden, people want to talk about grammar. Thats business for me. All of a sudden the doctor is in. Any contribution i think its also like language around the world doesnt always have gender pronouns like english does. Its not actually necessary. There are no gendered programs. The pronouns and finish cultures are inclusive or just a phenomenon that happens. Theres one thinthere is onee swedish but has been fairly successful introducing a known binary pronoun which was invented in the 1960s but became popular in the 1990s and has just about five years ago ben put into the official
Swedish Academy
dictionary so one of the things that seems to be going on in this pronoun is when the newspapers use it or when its used on tv shows if you ever watch any pbs, you will find a couple of episodes where they discuss and its well enough known in sweden that you dont have to explain what it is when it appears. Because we are not there yet. Even terms like this gender for example, something that i still frequently get its interesting because it has grown so progressive where for a while its not even using it and then i noticed it started to change e and i would be surprised when someone knew the term and its widely now but not that widely and i have to define it for people and get its not like it was created yesterday. There are plenty of people who dont know that there was a pronoun issue that are not part of the conversation and one of the things i hope my book is useful for is when somebody is new to the discussion that this will give them some information, some background on where they came from for decades, centuries and american suffragists picked on the use of key and voting statutes because it in 1850 in england and 71 in the u. S. And 1867 in canada the government passed laws saying any time a masculine pronoun appears that includes women because non binary was not an issue back then in terms of the rights of men and women so the suffragists argued a woman committing a crime could be convicted and punished so he and the voting of all it meanlaws means a woman c, so weve got the vote. Susan b. Anthony raised this argument in 1872 speaking at an illinois suffragist meeting and unfortunately judges and legislators in the u. S. And uk female judges and legislato legislators . [laughter] there were men who were supporting womens suffrage. They filed bills in parliament to give women the vote. What was the response to the argument . To build legislators and judges that said i dont think so. If anybody is covered under a crime but its also right like voting for becoming an attorney and doctor and it has to be specifically conferred he is not generic or natural in the world. In 1841, two american abolitionists got into an argument, a public argument in the press over whether he and the constitution in article to which describes the qualifications and the duties of president , whether he in article two if it means a woman can be president , and
Wendell Phillips
that you may have heard of said wait a minute, and the fifth amendment he gives both men and women the right to remain silent so he in article to it means a woman could be president , its generic, its not exclusionary. That really flushes out the point you made earlier about which language is often used in comes into play while they are dealing with political and cultural issues i guess that makes sense because we communicate primarily through language. It also makes me think about guess we are dealing with the idea of adding or making popular new non gendered pronouns into things like that but theres also a history of she and she and their construction and i find that fascinating because it breaks down they essentialism into the idea of what the terms are and its interesting to me from what you were just saying. Was there something you found compelling about the history of she and she in english . One of the problems when its used generically is all to often it means there is an inclusivity that when you are dealing with a practical issue, the interpretation is almost always know, this excludes women. And in a few instances where you have a generic use of she in the early 20th century you start seeing complaints. Its like they are really sensitive and emotional. They dont have the right temperament. They dont. You start seeing complaints by men with. Men teach, what about us. And if youre apparently the
Education Association
in the early 19 hundreds there was a rebellion that objected to the use of generic publications and they stood up at an annual meeting you cant use the generic anymore and the editor put out a call saying weve had this complaint would anybody like to suggest a pronoun and there were a couple of suggestions to solve this problem but what they wound up doing is bitching the generic she in favor of key so most teachers were still women they caved. Thats interesting in part because it is so complicated in ways you feel like at that time its such a clear example but now i think for today we think often about like what assumptions are we making when we think about careers like nurses were today it might be like to use automatically be revealing publicly emasculated because they have been subject. Its a terrible thing to be in the minority because the tyranny of the majority and easily bruised male ego. She didnt want to be seen as a woman when she was a man. Heres an interesting one i found by accident. I watched the production of the
Agatha Christie
murder us and said i havent read this in a while probably since i was a kid, so i got the book and i read it and in the book they talk about the perpetrator using the pronoun he, and he stops and says this is
Agatha Christie
. He says he generically that the killer could be a woman. This book is something that will be very useful way to pick it up and it will give you an interesting rundown of where we are at and where we came from with language around gender. Even if you hate the subject, read it. They are looking for a way to prove you wrong. Was there anything most compelling or surprising or interesting that you were delighted to find or found fascinating. One thing is being able to find earlier and earlier claimed pronouns. I knew that it was being discussed in the late 19th century but i didnt know that i could push it back a good 100 years and i assumed if i dont start being discussed in 1789 that there was stuff being discussed in 1750 that i havent come across. The other thing that fascinated me was this use of trying to flip the generic ke to give the women at vote. I was not aware of that until i began reading some of the pronoun issues the suffragists were talking about. I found that similarly compelling because i didnt know that either until i was looking at your book. It points to one of the things your book can be useful for and what makes it significant that it isnt just about table conversations and arguments about the right usage for practical political implications of the world and in our lives. It is the use of pronouns as a social and political marker. I was aware of pronouns indicate status for a long time we have in the 17th century for example the difference between you being used as a plural. It is used as a term of respect, the usage for a stranger or someone that is more high stat status. People have used singular vow to talk to god because it signifies an intimacy and people wanted that connection with a deity. Once you begin to drive out the singular in the 17th century by the 18th century nobody said by accepted grammar books. People started to complain. You cannot use you as a singular. Its plural. Now this happened 200, 300 years ago. We are so entrenched thinking of you is as a perfectly normal
Singular People
write to me and say we dont need a new portal for the second person. In your line of work linguistics people like to debate language. They got an email from a guy complaining about pronouns because i think jeff did a segment and the email basically says first you get the pronouns and then they are coming for the freedom of speech. In canada they felt very infringed when asked to properly identify agent that he doesnt like personally care for in his class. People feel their rights are being infringed upon and they are being forced out of mind is being controlled by the state. People dont adjust easily dismiss people in the traditions of authority that feel is calling for someone that is the pupil by a celtic in the pronoun sometimes they are supported and their rights are at risk and it is important to understand what your book is getting at. The idea isnt silencing the majority. The idea is giving the minority, people who are out of power in a precarious social situation a voice and some respect and some control over language that the majority is reluctant to yield to. Is there a linguistic response to the argument that i abide by reality, and in reality it has s established in a certain way it is contextual pronouns into cannot force me to use them because they are not real and that is infringing on my freedom of speech. This is what extremists say what is the linguistic response. There is a linguistic response and legal response because we want to address that issue as well. They linguistic response says all words are invented words. They came from somewhere, someone made up a word and other people started using it. Somebody, somewhere who knows when invented a he and somebody else invented she and someone else invented they and any oth other. Some of these actually called on, and eventually weve got language. A lot of the invented words go away and never make it outside of a small group. Heres an example because private language. You develop some unique words and expressions they are known to people outside of the group as a way of marketing the
Group Membership
in is a man who is out to. They see you write it and its just if naturally take and they repeat it and it spreads through a larger and
Paris Agreement<\/a> who will join the organizer to provide individuals can take to fend of climate disaster so those are events that are just this month. Our amazing season also includes a tribute to
Toni Morrisons<\/a> beloved and partnership with the
Schaumburg Center<\/a> and a discussion with writers reflecting on landmark cases. We have talks with so many morsi you can learn about the programs by setting up a mailing list which is on the website nypl. Org. Libraries are so great if you dont have a library card, you should because you can check out materials and search the catalog including the wonderful books that have been recommended and you can find them on the program. The correspondence and you can access all of those with your library cards. So, to get a sense of the format for the conversation, diana will speak for about 45 minutes after which they will take a few questions from the audience. Remember theres a difference te between questions and declarations please join me in welcoming diana and dennis. [applause] thank you for coming to the
Public Library<\/a> in manhattan to talk about the new book. [applause] did anybody feel excited to read this book . Me too. I was excited because i was a journalist and worked in media with publications on print and digital publication as well as a person that writes about issues i yielded so many comments and inquiries of what it means to be transgender or gender nonconforming connected to the change in language for people that are altering the way at which theyre living their lives and the world and factors like names and pronoun. So much of the feedback has been confusion and criticism of a chain she or new aspect that is occurring. Sometimes theres no problem and people are fine and other times theres controversies that surround the way in which we are seeing language change this
Transgender Movement<\/a> that has occurred over the last ten odd years. When i saw this book and it was a historical approach this just needed to be written and who better to be able to supply an argument or a physician and history and an hour just while you dont directly deal with these issues your self, someone like me is benefited. Id like you to tell us about this book and what made you want to write it. Thank you first of all for the introduction and for agreeing to be here tonight and for all of you who came to listen to us, i came upon pronouns quite by accident many years ago when i was researching
Something Else<\/a> that i cant even remember what it was. They found something they didnt like or something that was missing and filled they could make it right. We dont have enough words. We have too many. There was a guy in 1792,
James Anderson<\/a> who fortunately was an economist rather than a linguist and decided english needed 13 genders. 13. Fortunately they didnt provide 13 different pronouns or any pronouns but his contribution to the linguistic landscape of 18th century scotland went completely ignored. Probably that was a good thing because we dont have enough trouble memorizing the grammar rules in school if we have to multiply that what would that bo to the sat. One of the things i discovered starting in the 18th and early 19th century, people were noticing a missing word. Or they were noticing that the word was missing and it was a third person singular pronoun that wasnt gender specific that referred to people. Nobody uses it for people particularly for adult people unless they mean to insult the person they are talking about. Starting around the middle of the century, i noticed people began clinging onto them to fill the missing word got. This was in 2018. The earliest discussion account of 1789. They were not fo brandnew. Interesting. It wasnt associated with trans issues or gender nonconforming issues. At the time, partly we didnt have a vocabulary developed enough to talk about this issue. Its not that people were not aware of gender nonconforming persons, but it just wasnt a subject of grammatical concern at the time. There may have been other issues at the time, but people started claiming words in 1841 we found the first words pronoun just the letter e. , the person who claimed it apparently didnt find practicing medicine very satisfying so they would write a grammar book in his spare time. He broke this grammar book and only one copy of it survived interestingly enough. Nobody in their right mind is going to buy a book that a doctor wrote. So that is very i feel like that says a lot. And even theres a lot of ignorance around these kind of issues on both sides. Because unless someone takes the issue in the construction and integration of the new gender pronouns and to the american lexicon or wherever, i also am not that well informed about the history of the third or non gendered pronoun. So, its interesting to add that code foboth for people who may e interested already in supporting and people who are very critical and questioning if this is even possible to do. Having a historical precedent has a certain kinisa certain kin to the use of the language. Maybe it isnt necessary how do you approach this idea of thinking of something that can be right or wrong . Its what they do, wha we doy and what we write. Its what they actually do and sometimes there is a disconnect between the rules we think we are supposed to operate by and what we produce a. Im more interested in learning how people use language and how they feel it may be the first from what they are suppose wereo be doing because we are aware we are breaking a rule and we dont know why that will lose their other people are breaking the rule for example using they as a singular, highly controversial. I was talking to somebody and he said this is great. People should be allowed to use the pronouns they want to use that singularly it is just wro wrong. He was interviewing me. What do you say when somebody has that attitude. Been around since the 75. It wasnt in the 12th century. We didnt have pronouns that began tah. They came in a little bit later. We used it to singularly alltime. People that object to singular use cingular. You mean they use cingular. Whoever they are. [laughter] youve got a phone call, did they leave a message. They just say that. It is such a clear example in our conversations to getting up on the stage. We were discussing it and i thought that it is appropriate for what you were saying about how its something people dont take issue with, but then they take issue when it is associated with gender and other mores that are conflicting with them but theyve now attached. Language is often a substitute. We can agree what is right and wrong. We dont have to talk about the fact everybody here should speak english. That is one example. The official
English Movement<\/a> argues when in rome, do what the romans do. When youre in the u. S. , youve are expected to speak english and if you dont speak english, go back where you came from. It is a standard. Its okay to criticize peoples language but it doesnt quite. It didnt used to be quite so normal to criticize where people came from. Before 1924 it was okay to do it. So, if the pronoun tammy a standing for attitude towards the gender nonconforming just as it is used to celebrate non binary people it can be used to attack them. So, within a conversation i feel like it is an interesting pairing because my work focuses so highly on the transgender rights and culture and politics in the
United States<\/a> specifically so dealing with the different perspectives in politics and communities across the country for years now. Youve specifically havent been focused on these issues to my understanding its just too have noticed the culture is changing the aspect of it and so i find that very interesting and useful because i wonder how in your experience part of wanting to write this book must have been inspired it was different kinds of pronouns may be in the classroom outside of the classroom and in culture. What is that like for you as a linguist that is focusing on that from a linguistic perspective specifically and not so much the transgender rights issue . They are having conversations about the speech. Im happy to make this contribution at the time not just pronouns with a particularr kind of person singular pronouns there are stories about them in the newspapers every week i used to tell people you go to a party and they say what they do. I would say im an english teacher and they would go though a [inaudible] i am an english teacher and he said that was my worst subject. [laughter] and then he said to be obligatory i better watch my grammar and as he watched his grammar i watched his hand tightened on the drill but all of a sudden, people want to talk about grammar. Thats business for me. All of a sudden the doctor is in. Any contribution i think its also like language around the world doesnt always have gender pronouns like english does. Its not actually necessary. There are no gendered programs. The pronouns and finish cultures are inclusive or just a phenomenon that happens. Theres one thinthere is onee swedish but has been fairly successful introducing a known binary pronoun which was invented in the 1960s but became popular in the 1990s and has just about five years ago ben put into the official
Swedish Academy<\/a> dictionary so one of the things that seems to be going on in this pronoun is when the newspapers use it or when its used on tv shows if you ever watch any pbs, you will find a couple of episodes where they discuss and its well enough known in sweden that you dont have to explain what it is when it appears. Because we are not there yet. Even terms like this gender for example, something that i still frequently get its interesting because it has grown so progressive where for a while its not even using it and then i noticed it started to change e and i would be surprised when someone knew the term and its widely now but not that widely and i have to define it for people and get its not like it was created yesterday. There are plenty of people who dont know that there was a pronoun issue that are not part of the conversation and one of the things i hope my book is useful for is when somebody is new to the discussion that this will give them some information, some background on where they came from for decades, centuries and american suffragists picked on the use of key and voting statutes because it in 1850 in england and 71 in the u. S. And 1867 in canada the government passed laws saying any time a masculine pronoun appears that includes women because non binary was not an issue back then in terms of the rights of men and women so the suffragists argued a woman committing a crime could be convicted and punished so he and the voting of all it meanlaws means a woman c, so weve got the vote. Susan b. Anthony raised this argument in 1872 speaking at an illinois suffragist meeting and unfortunately judges and legislators in the u. S. And uk female judges and legislato legislators . [laughter] there were men who were supporting womens suffrage. They filed bills in parliament to give women the vote. What was the response to the argument . To build legislators and judges that said i dont think so. If anybody is covered under a crime but its also right like voting for becoming an attorney and doctor and it has to be specifically conferred he is not generic or natural in the world. In 1841, two american abolitionists got into an argument, a public argument in the press over whether he and the constitution in article to which describes the qualifications and the duties of president , whether he in article two if it means a woman can be president , and
Wendell Phillips<\/a> that you may have heard of said wait a minute, and the fifth amendment he gives both men and women the right to remain silent so he in article to it means a woman could be president , its generic, its not exclusionary. That really flushes out the point you made earlier about which language is often used in comes into play while they are dealing with political and cultural issues i guess that makes sense because we communicate primarily through language. It also makes me think about guess we are dealing with the idea of adding or making popular new non gendered pronouns into things like that but theres also a history of she and she and their construction and i find that fascinating because it breaks down they essentialism into the idea of what the terms are and its interesting to me from what you were just saying. Was there something you found compelling about the history of she and she in english . One of the problems when its used generically is all to often it means there is an inclusivity that when you are dealing with a practical issue, the interpretation is almost always know, this excludes women. And in a few instances where you have a generic use of she in the early 20th century you start seeing complaints. Its like they are really sensitive and emotional. They dont have the right temperament. They dont. You start seeing complaints by men with. Men teach, what about us. And if youre apparently the
Education Association<\/a> in the early 19 hundreds there was a rebellion that objected to the use of generic publications and they stood up at an annual meeting you cant use the generic anymore and the editor put out a call saying weve had this complaint would anybody like to suggest a pronoun and there were a couple of suggestions to solve this problem but what they wound up doing is bitching the generic she in favor of key so most teachers were still women they caved. Thats interesting in part because it is so complicated in ways you feel like at that time its such a clear example but now i think for today we think often about like what assumptions are we making when we think about careers like nurses were today it might be like to use automatically be revealing publicly emasculated because they have been subject. Its a terrible thing to be in the minority because the tyranny of the majority and easily bruised male ego. She didnt want to be seen as a woman when she was a man. Heres an interesting one i found by accident. I watched the production of the
Agatha Christie<\/a> murder us and said i havent read this in a while probably since i was a kid, so i got the book and i read it and in the book they talk about the perpetrator using the pronoun he, and he stops and says this is
Agatha Christie<\/a>. He says he generically that the killer could be a woman. This book is something that will be very useful way to pick it up and it will give you an interesting rundown of where we are at and where we came from with language around gender. Even if you hate the subject, read it. They are looking for a way to prove you wrong. Was there anything most compelling or surprising or interesting that you were delighted to find or found fascinating. One thing is being able to find earlier and earlier claimed pronouns. I knew that it was being discussed in the late 19th century but i didnt know that i could push it back a good 100 years and i assumed if i dont start being discussed in 1789 that there was stuff being discussed in 1750 that i havent come across. The other thing that fascinated me was this use of trying to flip the generic ke to give the women at vote. I was not aware of that until i began reading some of the pronoun issues the suffragists were talking about. I found that similarly compelling because i didnt know that either until i was looking at your book. It points to one of the things your book can be useful for and what makes it significant that it isnt just about table conversations and arguments about the right usage for practical political implications of the world and in our lives. It is the use of pronouns as a social and political marker. I was aware of pronouns indicate status for a long time we have in the 17th century for example the difference between you being used as a plural. It is used as a term of respect, the usage for a stranger or someone that is more high stat status. People have used singular vow to talk to god because it signifies an intimacy and people wanted that connection with a deity. Once you begin to drive out the singular in the 17th century by the 18th century nobody said by accepted grammar books. People started to complain. You cannot use you as a singular. Its plural. Now this happened 200, 300 years ago. We are so entrenched thinking of you is as a perfectly normal
Singular People<\/a> write to me and say we dont need a new portal for the second person. In your line of work linguistics people like to debate language. They got an email from a guy complaining about pronouns because i think jeff did a segment and the email basically says first you get the pronouns and then they are coming for the freedom of speech. In canada they felt very infringed when asked to properly identify agent that he doesnt like personally care for in his class. People feel their rights are being infringed upon and they are being forced out of mind is being controlled by the state. People dont adjust easily dismiss people in the traditions of authority that feel is calling for someone that is the pupil by a celtic in the pronoun sometimes they are supported and their rights are at risk and it is important to understand what your book is getting at. The idea isnt silencing the majority. The idea is giving the minority, people who are out of power in a precarious social situation a voice and some respect and some control over language that the majority is reluctant to yield to. Is there a linguistic response to the argument that i abide by reality, and in reality it has s established in a certain way it is contextual pronouns into cannot force me to use them because they are not real and that is infringing on my freedom of speech. This is what extremists say what is the linguistic response. There is a linguistic response and legal response because we want to address that issue as well. They linguistic response says all words are invented words. They came from somewhere, someone made up a word and other people started using it. Somebody, somewhere who knows when invented a he and somebody else invented she and someone else invented they and any oth other. Some of these actually called on, and eventually weve got language. A lot of the invented words go away and never make it outside of a small group. Heres an example because private language. You develop some unique words and expressions they are known to people outside of the group as a way of marketing the
Group Membership<\/a> in is a man who is out to. They see you write it and its just if naturally take and they repeat it and it spreads through a larger and
Larger Community<\/a> and sometimes it just stays in that group my daughter named them when she was two or three and we have no idea why she called them that and several years when her brother was when we introduced mashed potatoes my guess is it wont. You never know. But this is how the language operates. So many people follow suit and repeat. Sometimes you make of th up a wd it goes nowhere. Everyone basically in society has agreed he and she are tied to these markers. They have no right to impose their language on the rest of us and get language has a way of imposing itself on the rest of us without a topdown directive that says you must do this because when we are in conversation with other people and the right to and about other people, the tendency to maximize communication efficiently and effectively is to give your audience what they expect because if you want us to do something, if you want them to convince something and buy something, you give your audience concessions. I do a language course or i did before i retired and there are all kinds of language we have in the usa fifth amendment says the government cannot censor your speech, cannot tell you not to use something and another thing that follows, im not going to get into the religious aspects, these are the linguistic aspects is that the government cannot compel you to speak in certain ways. There was a supreme case in the 1940s where the court ruled the government cannot force you to say the pledge of allegiance if you do not believe in saying it, if it violates your beliefs so as the doctrine against compelled speech as well as protected speech. Given that, theres all kinds of language that falls outside of the protection of the first amendment, obscenity, threats, criminal conspiracy, slander, false advertising. It can compelled the
Surgeon Generals<\/a> warning and product labeling and pilots to speak english as a language of air traffic control. Theres all kinds that can compelled the president to save the oath of office. So the legal stuff is complicated. In terms of language change, it is to make a wall and get everybody to follow the linguistic aspects. You can make it to the official language that isnt going to get more people to speak english it tends to be efficient ways of controlling language. Pressure tends to be an efficient way of controlling language. Hopefully your book can help illuminate more minds and open those that are closed to the idea of respecting peoples autonomy and self identification in the classroom and beyond. We are now going to take some questions from the community and we do have a microphone so if you have a question raise your hand. As a writer, im interested how they hope to solve the problem of case studies for example when youre writing about a customer and then how to say his or her independence 20 years ago i know that was a problem. One thing that occurs to me and i get asked about sometimes now because im in th i am in the gr business of it is the antecedent tone because it can refer to people and things and there is no gender indicator so then its sometimes a little hard as a writer to find the antecedent and i wonder if you have seen people write about that or if you grapple with it yourself. Old language can be ambiguous and free for refer to an embodiment of saying im non binary or it can be used to hide someones identity that they were trying to protect. There are times when the oped from the white house whistleblower a couple of years ago they referred to the whistleblower using singular day because revealing the persons gender could put that person in jeopardy. It was a conscious choice on the part of the editors. They may do silly things at times but this was a good thing in terms of protecting the anonymous source. We have ways when a word is ambiguous of dealing with it and finding out what the meaning is either by explaining it or for example all of yall order you we develop ways for the language so there is no reason to expect that it would be any more or less ambiguous. We would be able to find the antecedent if we need to find the antecedent. If we dont want to pursue the whistleblowers identity, we just stay with the singular. Anyone else have a question. Thank you this is fascinating. As you know for a long time the quakers use the general population and im wondering the polarization could there be a situation where everybody in new york city except maybe staten island. Everybody always jumps on staten island. And then theres pluto. Or the blu or the blue states and red states. Could you see a situation where the strong differences of culture and worldview and politics some of the country you are going to make this a red state blue state. It. Not everybody agrees they want to do that, but could it go in that direction, yes there are such big splits in the country that we wouldnt all be on board. It is in the englishspeaking world since the 14th century it is a wrinkle in the usage so merriamwebster and the dictionary both added it was already a part of what everybody or somebody so now we have the non binary use added to that and its already been used by the majority of english speake speakers. The vast majority of them that i dont see this kind of dialect marker separating progressives and conservatives or red and blue and the way some other word might be. It might be that folks that reject the notion a non binary person could even exist are not going to be using singular for the person that is non binary. People that object they insist therapy is always bright. We came here for the drama. Who is behind curtain number one. You can get a marker i think you can in new york asked well and these are both i could see being a division when it comes down to are we acknowledging something beyond the gender binary but that is just another i thought of. Then they are going to take away your car. I wonder if you can comment about the agreement between the subject and verb. I would say used for soft you are, both of you you are. What about vague because i have a problem with that. [laughter] people would say im a big fan of singular. They come across not just one standard speakers it is a common kind of thing but who are using non binary with a singular verb and im thinking people are going to start arguing about the subject agreement and t that toe is the sign cingular i singular they was already implanted. We are not going to argue they cannot be singular anymore. Ive given up that argument. Thats okay, too. It is normal for the language to have multiple ways of saying some thing. And for people to disagree over what is right and what sounds right. We have time for one more question. Who really wants to ask something. The gentleman right here. They have a question. Gender assumption, my bad. Is there a language we are awarlink which we areaware of t . Old languages are maximally efficient in expressing the users of the language and what they need to express. So, no. There is not an ideal language that does it better. But it doesnt mean that you have to know swedish or that they do it better in swedish. [inaudible] and so does german and soviet english long, long ago. In old english there were a whole lot of things we dont want to revive. English used to have in the pronoun system a separate pronoun for me to. There is a high, we, and you and me and a separate pronoun that was you singular, plural and yeet which meant you and you, just the two of you. They had never seen anybody that said we should bring that back. Thats crazy. I love that. We technically have time for a twominute question unless you dont want me to do that. We actually only have one minute now. So that every timehey say the governor. The governor. They dont say he or she perk pronouns get too messy. The alternative is to repeat the down over and over. City council person. That is considered neutral and fair. Take you so much. [applause] what a wonderful conversation. Thank you for joining me today. It is a delight i thoroughly enjoyed your book perk i had an opportunity to read it a timely subject. As you may know the only pharmacist serving in congress this is important to me its also important to american citizens and everyone would agree with. I thought it was interesting that you start off the book with the premise that the
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