As someone who likes to describe his political views as “a little to the right of Karl Marx,” I’d like to think of myself as respectful of the sensibilities of others regarding gender identification.
I am also libertarian enough to dislike pressure to conform to some ideal of political correctness, often (though not always) associated with leftist political views, some of which I attribute to the resentment of the right to what has (inexplicably, in etymological terms) been characterized as “wokeness,” whatever that is, and to the divisiveness and resentment so evident in our society. (I also cringe at neo-logisms by the cognoscenti that seem invented to exclude).
And finally, as a 78-year-old curmudgeon too set in his ways to easily change a lifetime of linguistic usage in response to outside pressures, I disfavor attempts to change language usage by diktat, expressed or implied, efforts which linguistic history suggests are ultimately destined to failure anyway, as language always follows its own natural evolution. Especially when the usage necessarily leads to un-clarity, if not complete confusion.
So what is one to do in the face of pronoun evolution? The dilemma is well illustrated by the Wednesday Journal article of April 30 on the “man” who died by electrocution on the CTA Green Line tracks.
There were two relevant persons in the story: the victim and the station attendant. One sentence reports the victim was an unknown “man.” The next reports that the attendant spoke to “him,” and the third refers to him — again as a “man” all male and singular. Then that very same sentence ends by stating that “they were” (plural in form) not in need of assistance, which was jolting enough to me as not adding up, prompting me to go back and see if I had misread something previous.
The next sentence reports that the attendant came back, and “they” (again plural in form) observed the subject, leading me to another jolt, wondering if it was the same “they” as before (the victim), or somebody (or somebodies) else present as witness(es).
Finally the sentence ends by reporting that “they” had made contact with the third rail. Another jolt — why change the reference to someone who has already repeatedly been referred to as a “man,” and change “him” to a “they”?
The attendant is never referred to by gender, but if editorial policy prefers not to do so, the single use of “they” in reference to him/her/them could have been avoided, along with its confusion, with simple use of a noun or conjunction, e.g. “the attendant returned and observed” instead of “when the attendant returned … they observed.”
The point is that these particular uses seem to me to be completely pointless (if not also a little bit of “virtue signaling” and chastisement to the likes of me) and unnecessarily leading to complete lack of clarity, which ought to be anathema to a newspaper. Isn’t there a better solution?
I have a feeling there will now be a chorus of reader “Amens.”
Frank Stachyra has been a resident of Oak Park for 51 years.
- Wednesday Journal apologizes for inexact editing. They will try to do better in the future.