Using Plural Pronouns: Prelude to a Mess
[This is a longer version of a letter I sent to the Knoxville News Sentinel on 4 April 2022; they did not publish it. But they did publish a letter by someone who used plural pronouns to comment on the article below, someone who is apparently all for using whatever pronouns individuals declare they want others to use to refer to them. That is just madness.]
In “Amani Declines Plea Deal…” (3/29/22), the News Sentinel sacrifices clarity and informational value to political correctness by using plural pronouns to refer to a single person simply because he “uses they/them pronouns”. The story was confusing as to what happened to whom, given that there were two policemen and one arrestee, Amani. E.g., “Deputies handcuffed Amani and carried them facedown by their arms and legs into a holding room.”
One is sympathetic to a person’s desire to be seen as what he or she is, but it does a disservice to the rest of humanity to allow that person to dictate how he or she is to be referred to regardless of custom or grammatical expectations. Who is Amani to tell the rest of the world that plural pronouns must be used when referring to him? This is obviously a power move, not a logical correction of a past discrimination.
Long ago, language developed to include pronouns that distinguished actors by number and gender, i.e., singular vs plural and male vs female, the two most outstanding third-person signifiers in describing people and actions. (There could have been pronouns for old vs young, familiars vs strangers, etc., but that would have been unduly complicated.) Smooshing everything together into one pronoun set that serves for all (they, their) blurs meaning and makes reporting of any event or action difficult. Imagine the confusion in the interpretation of police reports if the police started to use one set of pronouns – there would be clarity only when the officer himself appeared on the stand to testify and when repeated questions by defense and prosecution established clearly how many did what.
News Sentinel folks are supposed to be giving light to the people, not making them say, “Huh?” Refusing to use the new pronoun set is not demonstrating prejudice against LGBTQ people; in fact, it is just the opposite because it is a tacit recognition of them as sensible people like everybody else, wanting clarity in language and so conceding an accommodation to themselves. A few militants should not be allowed to make things difficult for the great majority of other people.
To quote Joan Didion, ”I am committed to the idea that the ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language”. (Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, p. 180)
