Library. The freight introduce our wonderful contestants, i want to highlight the amazing events coming up the season. Tomorrow we have poets Jeanette Smith joined with friends, from the radio new collection of poems. On valentines day, the largest public event Series Library after hours, the citys most serrated real happy hour read there will be poetry readings and interactive collections featuring the print picture collection and more summary yourself and deliver a friend you want to turn to a lover,. [laughter]. Tour special edition of library after hours. In february 25th, we have two leading negotiators of the human agreement it will join the organizer and present options that government corporations and individuals and take regarding climate disaster. So this treatments just this month, are amazing season also includes a tribute to Tony Morrisons beloved in partnership with us on center. In the discussion with michael and writers reflecting on landmark cases. We have talked with Terry Mcmillan and so many more. So you can learn about our ourlems by signing up on mailing list which is on our website at why pl. Org credit libraries are so great. If you do not have a library card, you should. Why. You can check out materials and center catalogs of thousands of titles including the wonderful books that dennis has recommended and you canni buy ts recommendations on your progra. You also have access to amazing collections acrosss our research district. We have shermans podium papers, manuscripts, correspondence and you can access all of this with your library card. Civic uses of the format for tonights conversation, diana and dennis speak about 45 minutes. After which they will take a few questions from the audience. Remember there is aem difference between questions and declarations. What like russians here. [laughter]. So with that now, these welcome diana and dennis. [applause]. Dennis thank you for coming to this Public Library in manhattan. Joining me and dennis here to talk about his new book. [applause]. Does anybody here feel excited to read this book here yep me too. What i got asked to do this event i was really excited because i am a journalist and i work in the media. I work here fulltime. There different publications on credit and digital publication as well. They been doing that for five years and now im entrance person writes about trans issues and i filled in so many comments and inquiries from the public around various aspects of what it means to be transgender. Diana or nonconforming which inherently is connected to a change in language often for people who are altering the way they are living their lives in thede world identity and identifying factors like pronouns. And so much about has been confusion and criticism of the change or a seemingly new aspect language that is occurring which people are uncomfortable with. Sometimes there is no problem people are quite fine and other times there large controversies in the weight that we are seeing language and change printed business versioning trans gender movement has occurred over the last ten odd years. When i saw this book, i saw that it was really a historical approach looking at the weight in which pronouns have been shaped over the years. I thought this actually just needed to be written. Who better to supply an argument not even an argument but it session and history and analysis of language. Specifically around this subject matter. So while you dont directly deal with transgender issues yourself kesomeone like me is greatly benefited by the book that you have produced. And so without, i guess i would just like to ask you to tell us a little bit about this book. And what made you a want to wrie it. Dennis thank you for small for the introduction and for your agreeing to be here tonight. And to all of you who have came to listen to us. I came from pronouns quite by accident many years ago. When i wasin researching somethg Something Else i cannot even remember what it was. Interested in people who try to reform language to say that they have found something they did not like or something that was missing and felt that they could make it right. We do not have enough words. They have too many words. [laughter]. There was a guy in 1792, James Anderson who fortunately was an economist rather than linguist but he decided that english needed 13 genders that masculine and neuter where not enough. We 13 and fortunately he did night provide 13 different pronouns pretty did not provide any pronouns at all. But his contribution to the linguistic landscape of the 18th century was completely ignored. Probably that was a good thing because women have trouble memorizing grammar rules in school and if we had multiply that by 13, what would they do to the sat. [laughter]. Diana it would be a nightmare in the country would shut down. Dennis one of the things that i i discovered was that starting in the late 18 and early 19th centuries, people were noticing and missing words. For they were noticing the word was missing. From english it was a third person singular pronoun does not gender specific that referred to people. A third person singular it but nobody uses it for people particularly for adults people unless they mean to insult the person. Its very common for the 19th century politicians to call their opponents. [laughter]. Anyway, starting around the middle of the 19th century, i noticed the people began claiming pronouns to fill that missing word gap. The earliest one i found. Diana this is like ae discussion like where it was hard third one were missing a pronoun and this was since like 2018. [laughter]. Dennis this was an like the earliest discussion that i found was in 1789. Suet okay so its not brandnew. Dennis it is not brandnew. It was not associated with gender nonconforming issues at the time. Partly i i think because we do t have a vocabulary developed enough to talk about this issue. So the people were not aware of gender nonconforming persons but it just was not a subject. Grammatical concern at the time. There may have been other issues involved but people started niining words in 1841. Found the first coined pronoun eat just the d. I assume it is pronounced e. The person appointed a brandnew deep per meal who apparently did not find a practicing medicine. Satisfying but he had write a number book. [laughter]. In his spare time and maybe even have too many patients under no but he wrote this from her book only one copy of it survived interestingly enough that yield university library. Because he gave them a copy. [laughter]. Nobody in their right mindd will bite a grammar book that doctor iswrote. Anyway. Diana i feel like that is a lot. Even for someone and theres a lot of ignorance around these kind of issues from both sides because someone is take no issue with the construction of new gender pronouns into the american or wherever, i also know that will inform at the history of the third or non gender pronoun. So it is interesting add that both for people who may be interested already and recording it for people who are very critical and questioning if this is even possible to do. This historical precedent is a certain kind of validation to the use of this language maybe it is not necessary even as a linguist, and he approaches idea of thinking of language is something that can be right or wrong. Dennis i tended to or my own approach to language is that it is what we do. Is what we say and so what we write. It is not what we are supposed to do. Its actually what we do. And since our sometimes there is a disconnect between the rules that we think were supposed to operate by and what we actually produce when we speak and write. I am more interested in exploring how people actually use language and how they feel that it may be differs from what they are supposed to be doing because we are aware often that we are breaking a rule that maybe we do not know why that rule is there. Maybe we have to question why the rule is there. And why it bothers us so much if other people are breaking the rules for example using pay is a singular. Diana highly controversial. Dennis highly controversial. I was talking to somebody this afternoon and he said, this is great. People should be allowed to use the pronouns that they want to use but you know what, singular they, that is just wrong. [laughter]. And the skype was interviewing me. [laughter]. Twenty what you see when somebody has that attitude. This is just . Wrong. It is been around since the 14th century and they as a singular. It is been around for centuries. For hundreds of years. Diana any like lived in a different time. Dennis was not in the 12th century. Diana maybe it was his life century. Dennis became a little bit later, things beginning with that were the letters th. So that is why. Diana b so we use they singularly all of the time. Speech of all of the time, people who objected to singular, they use singular things. Listened to them. Diana you mean they use singular they eat. Whoever they are. Dennis you get a phone call, did they leave a message. Just say that, that is totally normal english. Diana and is such clear example in our conversations prior to getting on this stage, we were discussing it. I thought it was very appropriate what you were saying about how something people dont take issue withwi you, but then take issue up with it when it is associated with gender and you made a point that sometimes these things can be standards for other perhaps social norms are worries that are conflicting with empathy have now attached. Dennis language is often a substitute. We can agree on what is right and wrong but the language we know the talk about the facts, while i would rather hear english. That is one example. The official English Movement argues that when in rome, do what the romansan do. When youre in the u. S. , you are expected to speak english. You do not speak english, go back where you came from. It is a standard for anti immigrant feelings. It is okay to criticize peoples language. It is not quite this before 2016. Do not need to be so normal. Before 1924, is normal. So the pronoun thing, is it can be standard for attitudes towards gender nonconformity. Just as it is used to celebrate non binary people. It can be used to attack them. Diana so within like, the conversation, i feel like that isin interesting. My work focuses so highly on transgender rights and culture and politics in thehe United States specifically so ive been dealing with my work, the different perspectives on this that exist within politics and communities across the country for years now. You have not specifically been focused on transgender issues in your work is my understanding right. Speech of rights. Diana culture is changing. So i find that very interesting and useful because i wonder how in your experience, part of wanting to write this book, inspired in part by saying increased usage of different kinds of pronouns may be in the classroom, and culture, and what was that like for you is a linguist who is focusing on that from aha linguistic perspective. The trans gendered rights issue. Dennis i find it very exciting and interesting that all of a sudden people are having general conversations about a part of speech. [laughter]. Diana of the lucky academics. This may be the only time that it happens. Dennis i am happy to make this contribution. When all of a sudden, are some speechrt or a particular part of speech, not just pronouns for the particular item for them or singular printout pronoun, their stories about them in the newspaper every week. Maybe even every day. We go to the the civil what you do and i would say, im an english teacher and them say oh. A better watch my grammar. As though dennis was that he was preparing to fill the cavity and do and i said i was all numbed up so i couldnt understand that he could understand what i said. I am ant english teacher and he said im better watch my grammar like i was correcting his grammar. Watches hand tightened on the drill. [laughter]. But all of a sudden people want to talk about that. Hey, it is business for me. Right. All of a sudden, the doctor is in. [laughter]. Diana onhope the language around the world does not always have gender pronouns english does. It is not actually necessary in language. Diana dennis it has to do with in the or inclusivesexist or anything just a phenomenal, it just happens. There is one language, swedish whichs has been fairly successl in introducing a nine binary non gender neutral corona which was invented in the 60s but became popular in the 1990s and is just about five years ago, then put into the visual Swedish Academy dictionary. So one of the things it seems to be going on with us pronoun is that when newspapers use it when its used on tv shows of the group watch any standing on dbs, you will find a couple of episodes where they have discussed. It is full enough known in sweden that you dont have to explain what it is when it appears. Diana we are definitely not there yet. It is something that it still frequently get people, while i remember it as it is an i interesting, i watched it regress over five years where for a while, not even using it unless i was speaking with someone who i knew already knew it. The other person would not rated when i think that. Then i noticed that that started to change. I would be surprised when somebody knew the terms of gender who i do not expect to. And widely now but it is still not known or that widely and i would often have to define it for people. And yet, it is not like it was out there. Dennis there are plenty of people who do not know that there is a safe pronoun issue. On the part of this conversation and one of the things that i hope my book is useful for is when somebody is new to the discussion, that this will give them some information and some background warranties pronouns came from. And the fact that gender has been an issue often for decades, centuries. And in english, in the 19th century, americans suffragists on the use of heat, in voting statutes, because in 1850 in england in 1871 in the u. S. , and in 1867 in canada, the governments passed laws saying every time the masculine noun or pronoun appears, it appears franklins women. It was not an issue that than in terms of womens rights. Since the fridges argued if he in the criminal law is a woman commanded about crime can be convicted of it and he and the voting law means that a woman can vote. Diana clever bench. Dennis so she can be antiracist and speaking and illinois suffrage meeting and unfortunately judges in the u. S. And the uk. Diana female legislatures. Dennis there were men who are supporting womens suffrage. There really were. They actually filed broken parliament to give women the boats. Diana so what was the response to the suffrage of the arguments. Dennis the legislatures and the judges said, and i dont think so. He is inclusive and is genderneutral. Anybody is covered under a crime. But like voting or becoming an attorney or a doctor, and that right it has to be specifically converted. He is not generic, he is not neutral in the law. In 1941, two american abolitionists, got into an argument in the press. Over whether he in the constitution in article two, which describes the qualifications and the duties of the president , whether he in article two means that a woman cannot be president. And spender said he means a woman cannot be president and wendell phillips, you may have heard of him, simply diminished, in the fifth amendment gives us both men and women the right to remain silent read so he, in article two, means that a woman could be president. Innes generic, is not exclusionary. Diana that really flushes out the point earlier that often it is used in often comes into play while we are dealing with political and cultural issues. It makes sense because we communicate permanently for language. It also makes me think about dealing with the idea of adding or making popular, new third non gender pronouns or things like this today but there is also history where the p g, and their construction and if in the fascinating to because it can help break down the essentialism that is sort of bacon to the idea of like, what those terms are because they have always existed read and the only mean one thing. And even the gender of neutralization of heat, is interesting to me. Historically from what you are just saying. Was there something that you found compelling about the history of he and she and english. Dennis one of the problems with he when it is used generically, is all too often, it means only men. There is a non inquisitive bitty. When you are dealing with a practical issue, the interpretation was almost always that this excludes women in this just means men. In the few instances where you have a generic use of she, the response that you have in the earlier 20th century you start saying complaints by men and men seem to whine a lot about language. Diana is like the really sensitive and emotional. Dennis i cant explain it. Diana they dont have the right temperament. It. Dennis you start seeing complaint by men that well teachers, when we talk about teachers the crime is always cheap. The men teach. When venice. You are ignoring us. And apparently, the National Execution us, in the early 19 hundreds, there was a rebellion by a group of male teachers who rejected to the use of generic sheet to refer to teachers and the publications of the nea. They stood up in a meeting and said, you cannot use generic sheet anymore. In the editor of the journals, but i would call in the next issue saying look, weve had this complaint would anybody like to suggest a pronoun. And there were a couple of writings aright and suggestions for pronouns to solve this problem but with the ended up doing is ditching generic sheet, in favor of generic e. So even though the time the most teachers were still woman, he caved. Diana sounds so complicated. Actually that time is such a clear example of sexism. But now i think more more today, think often about what assumptions are we making when we think about careers. Like nurses. Our today you might be like, it would be sort of old thinking to use automatically, as she pronoune when thinking of a nurse. Her teacher or something. And yet back in a different time history, there were sort of been standing up and feeling emasculated because they had been subjected to this generic pronoun for themselves. Dennis it is a terrible thing to be in the minority. It easily bruised male ego. Diana she did not want to be seen as a woman when she was a man. That teacher. Back then. [laughter]. For thing. Oh yeah, they. I would work. Dennis here is an interesting one i found quite by accident. I watch thee bbc production of the abc murders. I said okay, i have not read this in a long time. Probably since i was a kid so that the book about it. In the book, they talk about the perpetrator, the one whos doing the abc murders, using the pronoun he. Any stops. And he says, this is Agatha Christie giving him these lines pretty he said Something Like this. I use that he word generically, you sh