Like many people in the Twin Cities, I know who Dr. Anatoly Liberman is because he has appeared occasionally for years on one of the Minnesota Public Radio morning talk shows to discuss etymology. As readers of this blog know, that's one of my favorite topics, and Liberman — with his charming accent, warmth, and storytelling skills — brings it to life. Here's an example of a 2019 MPR show.
So when I saw that he was going to be giving a free talk called "Where Words Come From" at a nearby library a few weeks ago (you can see it on video here), I made room in my schedule and got one of the last seats in the packed room. As I hoped, Liberman was just as charming in person. His prepared talk showed him to be a descriptivist, with the twinges of a prescriptivist who has let go because he's wise enough to know that language changes. During the talk, he showed in multiple ways that he sees language as transforming over time and that prescriptivism is a dead-end that always looks foolish later. Right on!
But then, after an hour and 20 minutes or so of engaging thoughts and discussion with the people in the room, one of the final audience questions — from a 75ish-year-old woman — was: "I just can't get used to using 'they' as a singular for individual people. What do you think about that?"
And Liberman...commiserated with her. He went on to give an example from the University of Minnesota student newspaper the Minnesota Daily's Dr. Date column, where a young woman writer described a phone call from someone named John but referred to John as "them" rather than "him" and Liberman called that absurd. And then, not in so many words, he decried overt actions to change language (as opposed to the ways it changes "naturally," I guess). He even threw out the term "political correctness" (not my favorite).
Well, I have news for Dr. Liberman: I know a person named Emily who uses they/them pronouns, which is just as "gendered" a name as John, so John could as easily be using "they." The person writing the letter to Dr. Date surely knows better what John's pronouns are than Dr. Liberman does.
And where did Liberman's openness to descriptivism suddenly disappear to? Does he really think that the one type of change that should be poo-pooed is when people overtly try to make language represent them better? I wonder if the woman who asked the question would also object to the hard-fought change from the assumed universality of masculine pronouns that we've made over the past few decades. I suspect not. Or to the ongoing fight against denigrating terms for people who are not white or straight or Christian. Those are all overt actions to make language change.
It was a disappointing end to an otherwise worthwhile talk.
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As an aside: As I was thinking about this post, I had the realization that binary gender is a pair of doors that all of us are forced to go through at birth. Most of us have a set of genitalia that make it easy for our families to think they know which door is "ours." (Some of us don't have that, and are physically altered or made to pretend we're something our anatomy doesn't align with.) But none of us are given a say in which door we go through, since we can't talk at the time. Many of us are happy with the door that was chosen for us, and the door leads to a whole world where we can live our lives. But for quite a number of others, the door leads into a closet, and it's only by breaking back through the door and either entering the other door or refusing all the doors that we can be ourselves.
People who refuse the doors are increasingly choosing they and them as the pronouns they prefer, and it's not that much to ask to get used to using those.
2 comments:
I'm looking forward to watching the talk when I have the time — thanks for linking to it. He drew quite a crowd.
About the pronouns at the end: I lean more in your direction than in his. I’ve used singular they to refer to an unidentified person, and I’ll use it to refer to a specific person when the occasion arises. But the example from the newspaper column is a little complicated: I don’t think we can assume that the letter-writer is using the pronoun that John prefers, as many young people use they to refer to any specific person. And that creates an ambiguity: does they suggest that John is non-binary, or is it just the letter-writer’s go-to pronoun? Different audiences might see different implications in the choice of pronoun.
Another complication, which our whole family has kicked around: the question of asking that people — say, students in a classroom — announce their preferred pronouns. What about the student who’s not ready to announce a non-binary identity to a room of strangers? Do they risk they? Do they mask themselves with he or she? If I were still teaching, I wouldn’t put this question to students in a classroom. I think it’s a matter better left for students to bring up as they choose, maybe in office hours.
As for split infinitives: I can’t believe he’s opposed to them. That’s a ridiculous made-up rule, and he should know better (unless he’s joking?).
I wonder if a student who is still thinking about their gender identity would feel worse about saying the one they were assigned at birth, if that's their choice in the situation, than they would about not being asked at all? The act of asking tells everyone that it's a legitimate question.
I have not been in a classroom with this, but I have been in quite a number of meeting settings, often with younger people. The act of acknowledging has power, I believe.
And I have seen calls for everyone to use "they" as a first choice to undermine the "need to know" gender, as if it is a defining fact about each person's status. As an official old person, I'm not sure what I think of that call, but there does seem to be a move afoot.
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