*whisper* bisexual girls who have a preference for guys are just as valid as those who have a preference for girls or no preference at all. pass it on
*additional whisper* bisexual guys who have a preference for girls are also just as valid as those who have a preference for guys or no preference at all. pass it on
Stop whispering in class!
NO
To the principal’s office, NOW!
Whispering in class, huh?
Bad news, buster.
You are grounded grounded grounded for 7×10^98!42^432! years.
Okay, as a lot of you know, I work overnights at a hotel. It’s for a pretty recognizable brand, so we get a lot of high paying customers.
Part of my job is to prep the breakfast area before the breakfast team shows up so that breakfast is done by the time it needs to be. This, of course, means that I have to step away from the desk. It doesn’t really help that the time I need to start working on breakfast is also when customers start checking out.
So I had the bright idea of making a sign. It’s not fancy, the letters are pretty big, and it basically just says “Hey if you need me I’m in the kitchen, just give a holler.”
It’s worked really well so far; people see it, they call for me, and I get them taken care of with little to no fuss. Or, at least, it’s worked up until now.
This guy.
This. Fucking. Guy.
I finish prepping the breakfast area, I walk out, and at the front desk is a man, huffing and puffing. He harshly asks “Are you working the front desk?”.
I say with my best customer service voice “Yes sir, I just had to prep a few things for the breakfast team. Can I help you with anything?”
“Yeah you can help me by giving me some fucking service. I’ve been waiting for almost five minutes and I have to catch my flight!”
Oh boy. Here we go.
So I tell the man, “Well, sir, if you’ll look right in front of you, if you needed me, that sign tells you that I was in the kitchen.”
And this man. Just. Fucking looks at me. And says.
“You expect me to fucking read on my day off?”
And I just.
I was floored. That someone would say that. Completely unironically. With no hesitation.
“they” (1 word) is shorter than “he or she” (3 words)
“they” is more inclusive than “he/she”
“themself” flows more naturally than “him or herself”
“they” is less clunky than “(s)he”
it’s time to replace the awkward “she or he”
“hey can you go ask they what does they want for dinner, and when is they coming over to watch movies with they?”
“Hey, can you go ask them what they want for dinner, and when they’re coming over to watch movies?”
Step one is learning how to talk like a human person.
Friendly reminder:
“I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even if they’d done me wrong.” —George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)
“A person can’t help their birth.” —William Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848)
“But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable.” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
“Every Fool can do as they’re bid.” —Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (1738)
“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” —King James Bible, Matthew 18:35 (transl. 1611)
“God send every one their heart’s desire!” —William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (~1600)
“Now this king did keepe a great house, that euerie body might come and take their meat freely.” —Sir Philip Sidney, the Arcadia (1580)
“If … a psalme scape any person, or a lesson, or els yt they omyt one verse or twayne…” —William Bonde, The Pylgrimage of Perfection (1526)
“And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, / They wol come up and offre a Goddés name” —Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale (~1380)
“þan hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt on hors & on fote, / huntyng wiȝt houndes alle heie wodes, / til þei neyȝþed so neiȝh to nymphe þe soþe [Then hastily hied each person on horse and on foot / hunting with hounds all the high woods / ‘til they came so near, to tell the truth]” —William and the Werwolf (transl. ~1350-1375)
“Bath ware made sun and mon, / Aiþer wit þer ouen light [Both were made sun and moon / Either with their own light]” —Cursor Mundi (~1325)
We’ve been using they/them/their pronouns to indicate a person with unspecified gender for a long ass fucking time. The only reason it’s become a big issue lately is because it can be used as a semi-respectful term for trans and non-binary folks and we can’t have that can we
These fucks are literally trying to change our language to hurt trans/nb folks, and claiming that’s just the way its always been
how did that person forget the word ‘them’
Honestly, since I was a kid, Ialwaysused they/them/their when I didn’t know the gender. It was weird when I hear ‘he/she’ or ‘he or she’. Or when people told me ‘they/them/their’ was unprofessional.
The problem seems to come from the same place as not splitting the infinitive or ending a pronoun in a preposition. People trying to cram a Germanic Language* (probably the least conservative**, but still) with a Latinate superstratum*** into a Latinate hole, which works about as well as trying to shove a cow a dog door into a barn****.
*English is pretty much something like 80% Germanic roots, and has structure based more on Germanic, to the point that most questions that use an interogative pronoun still follow Verb-Second word order (requires a verb or axillary after the subject phrase)
**Conservative in This case meaning that it keeps a lot of stuff from its parent languages and boy is English a wild child in that case.
***A superstrayum is a language that has high prestige. Due to Norman being the language of prestige bit never really being integrated (except in the Channel Islands), it merely added to the British Latin and Ecclesiatical Latin substrate, and probably simplified the Anglo-Saxon grammar.
**** It just doesn’t work, ruins everything, and was a fool’s errand in the first fucking place.
when i was a little kid, i didn’t care for movies. my parents always admonished me for sitting too close to the screen or fidgeting too much, so i turned to books instead. when i was four, i tried to watch the first harry potter movie. i absolutely loved it, but it wasn’t enough for me. i had to get my hands on that book. the teachers at pre-school said it was a horrible idea, but i read the first two books anyway.
then came kindergarten. the teachers scolded my parents for letting me bring novels to school. “she can’t possibly understand them,” they said. so they gave me tests on the books. i made perfect scores on all of them. i preferred books to movies and television; movies didn’t do justice to the stories i loved.
so, they marked me down as a “gifted child.” they tested my IQ and everything. i was the perfect student, in their eyes. i sat in the front and listened to the teachers as intently as i could.
one day after school, i ran up to my mother and hugged her. then, i turned my head and saw my mother walking towards me. i looked up at the woman i had hugged. “you’re not my mother,” i said, astutely.
my mother, a clever woman, thought to have my eyesight tested. turns out, i had horrible vision. somewhere around 20/450. functionally blind without glasses. not ideal for anyone, especially a six year old.
all my life until that point, people thought i must be some sort of brilliant prodigy, eschewing television and movies for more intellectual pursuits, but actually i just couldn’t fucking see lol
This took a different direction than I was expecting.
ifesbob 