Pedants Suck

On the bus today, I heard someone going off on grammar and how "they" as a singular pronoun marks the decline of western civilization (and poor old Penelope Spheeris blamed the Circle Jerks).

Now, I'll admit, I'm biased: I like "they" as the neuter pronoun. I think it's more elegant than "he or she" and can be read aloud unlike s/he. And it's a far sight better than the Spivak solution. Which, just...ugh.

But I find that it's always the people who don't know diddly about grammar who get so worked up about it. They know a few rules and then they smugly crusade against all deviations. I bet half these busride grammarians couldn't tell their participle from their gerund and couldn't tell you what part of speech the infinitive is to save their lives. But by God, they think the world is going to fucking end if someone accidentally uses an apostrophe to make a plural.

I'd be remiss in my duties as a leftist crackpot not to note that there is a strong class inflection to this matter. And let it never be said that Feemus is derelict in his duty (for those of you at home, now would be the time to say: "Ha ha, you said 'duty'"), so here is my statement about class: This is just a way for people who grew up speaking standard/prestige English to congratulate themselves on what amounts to nothing more than using their own dialect.

But at the heart of the matter, it's people substituting martinet rigidity for real gentility, which entails actually trying to understand someone even if it means putting aside initial judgments; it entails courtesy over dismissive prescriptiveness; it entails not subjecting Feemus to 23 minutes of kvetching while he tries to read on the bus.

Sometimes, I really think I should drive to work.

In the interest of full disclosure: I actually do blame the Circle Jerks for the decline of civilization. Sorry, guys.