There'll be a test later...

[Truckman]

Please study the following chart:



In my neighborhood the preferred pronouns are "y'all" and "we'uns"......Ben

[Mike]

Well, that's it for me! Johns Hopkins is officially removed from my list of approved health care providers.

[Dave Grubb]

Our youngest son has been receiving treatment there for the past three years. We believe that it is an exceptional hospital and this will not alter my thinking. Political correctness is secondary to medical care---and independent of that as well.

As an aside, my dermatologist practice is a huge multi-location practice, highly organized and computerized. Prior to each appointment I am emailed a form to fill out online. It is always the same form with the same questions---it became more than a little annoying and so now I refuse to participate---it seems not to matter It includes at least 10 questions, none of which are likely to change since the first time I filled it out----so now I check "decline to answer". Those questions include, sex, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, race and a few more that I am likely forgetting that need not to be asked!

[Sandman]

I don’t care.. bigger fish to fry..

But.. “they” is plural.. I feel like a hill Billy using the wrong tense..

Y’all pretty well covers gender neutral.. (written formally as “to whom it may concern “ )

[Kevin]

By the time I left government, each meeting started with an introduction of people's names and if they wanted, they could at that time state a pronoun preference. At the time, I kinda rolled my eyes. But you know what?

This is a matter of courtesy, and a gentleman always seeks to put his own wishes and needs secondary to others and their comfort. If someone wants me to refer to them with what I was taught was a plural pronoun, I will, and I work hard to ensure that my private thoughts about such usage remain private. It is called putting others before one's self.

And people should know that language changes all the time. I learned Celtic and even Celtic, a resurrected language that had pretty much died in a pre-industrial age thanks to the Brits, managed to come up with words for automobile and artificial intelligence. Try reading Shakespeare without a gloss at the bottom of each page for words he uses that are now either obsolete or whose meaning has changed. A living language is dynamic.

So the "you danged kids keep off my lawn!" response to this issue might need to be rethought.


Such drama over a one syllable exhalation of breath! It cost literally nothing to do this courtesy to others and just like Sandman says, I suspect there are bigger fish to fry.

[Mike]

Not going to happen, Kevin. I will continue to use pronouns the way I was taught in public schools and colleges. End of story.

[Kevin]

conservatism: commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation.

No big deal, you do you, but meanwhile, will ye nil ye, things change about you. Consider this:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

At one time, we spoke like that. Times change.

That, BTW, is the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. It continueth:

Bifil that in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght were come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by áventure y-falle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed atte beste.
And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everychon,
That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
And made forward erly for to ryse,
To take oure wey, ther as I yow devyse.

Spelling, word meanings, language is in a constant state of flux. Grammar, too. Did you know that in the 1400s, English had 16 declensions for nouns, based on the sex of the noun and whether it was plural or singular, and whether the case of the sentence was nominative, accusative (objective), dative or possessive? That all got simplified over time and we've forgotten the Germanic roots of English, to the point where your conservatism looks like radical heresy to someone from that era. Should he or she show up to tell YOU to "getteth thy self auf myne verde!"

[UTAH]

Mx? Really? But, I still use the word Mulatto, which is now considered outdated and racist.

I wonder, would Keanu Reeves object if I described him as Eurasian?

Hunter