I can see it in their eyes—THEY&#39;VE ALREADY DIED INSIDE.

THERE IS NO CLASSISM HERE

NONE

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AND I WONDER WHAT "INNER-CITY" MEANS IN THIS CONTEXT

FROM A PURELY LINGUISTICAL PERSPECTIVE OF COURSE I MEAN, WORDS CAN BE FUNNY THINGS

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I think it's funny that someone so pedantic about word use can be so oblivious about what he's revealing about himself, there.

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No one is allowed to complain about improper uses of "they" ever again. English is an evolving language, and "they" is filling the niche for "gender neutral plural/singular" pronoun at this point in time. DEAL WITH IT.

Also, using "literally" possibly makes you sound somewhat overexcitable, but it is HYPERBOLE. That is what it DOES.

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maxiboom.livejournal.com

I'm kind of curious about "...but it’s more common today to use “she” as the universal pronoun." Not in a mocking way, I'm wondering if this is actually true. And where, and how this arose, and why it's considered a superior choice to "they", and it's alot of questions for a random throw-away sentence.

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I've never heard that ever. I have a professor who uses "she" and "he" interchangeably when making a hypothetical case or point, but apart from that it seems to be "he"s all the way down. I guess people might have started using it in an attempt to equalize the common practice of assuming all unknown persons are "he," but other than that, I got nothin'.

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I'm reading a book right now where the author uses "she" as often as he uses "he" as a generic pronoun. Whenever he uses "he" it's basically invisible to me, whenever he uses "she" I notice. THEREFORE I deduce this is not common usage, no.

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People complaining about "they" drive me fucking batty. For one, it's completely understandable. For two, pretty much everyone finds its use acceptable. For three, it's basically impossible to coin function words and have native speakers actually use them -- it's a syntax thing, function words are pretty much fixed. Therefore ... what is the objection, here? The argument is that it's a third person pronoun and can't be used to refer to singular things, but ... it does? Perfectly well, even?

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Yeah. The genderqueer movement can push for zie and hir all they like, and I respect the need for those, but I'm not sure they're ever going to catch on in a big way. And yes! Who died and let them dictate how a word can be used, anyway.

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Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to tell anyone not to use them, and I do understand them when they're used and why people are using them -- but I never naturally understand them, I have to sort of think for a split second, no matter how often I see them. I'm not entirely sure I could catch them in speech either.

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Zie always makes me thing of zwieback. I'm sorry, genderqueer movement.

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Not to mention dialects.

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WHAT IS A DIALECT. The only options here are speaking RIGHT and speaking WRONG.

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I imagine her thoughts on AAVE are delicious.

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Considering the description of the "inner-city" woman speaking "haughtily..."

One thing I love about linguistics is that not considering AAVE (and lots of other dialects of English) a legitimate dialect is considered completely insane. ... Wow, what an awkward sentence, there.

Edited Date: 2009-09-10 04:50 pm (UTC)

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Yeah, 'cuz how dare anyone from the INNER CITY try to talk like they's edumacated! That sorts of talks is for college graduate folks, i.e. rich folks, 'cuz ain't no INNER CITY foo' gonna afford COLLEGE!

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And if the usage was unusual for her, I think it's really goddamn likely that she chose to say it that way because she was talking to him. Y'know, the grammar Nazi.

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...You know, I actually assumed the example that dude was hypothetical (and thus ign'ant), but your comment and looking at the way it was worded again made me realize that it might well have actually happened to him. In which case, a) how would he know how literate or not she was, and b) how much of a jerk was he being to prompt a response like that? But yeah, agreeing that if this actually occurred, she might have talked like that because of her audience. Who knows, we don't know the rest of the context here.

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goodbyemyboy.livejournal.com

Not to mention the fact that "they" was properly used as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun up until the twentieth century and, you know, words are allowed to mean more than one thing.

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goodbyemyboy.livejournal.com

Words having more than one meaning might confuse the chimps who can't understand English grammar!

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NO

YOU ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO HAVE ONE DEFINITION PER WORD

WHAT?! PUNS? AMBIGUITY? DOUBLE ENTENDRES!? GET OUT OF MY LANGUAGE

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iron.livejournal.com

No one is allowed to complain about improper uses of "they" ever again. English is an evolving language, and "they" is filling the niche for "gender neutral plural/singular" pronoun at this point in time. DEAL WITH IT.

I try to refrain from using "they" as a universal pronoun when writing papers for uni, but it gets so annoying if I'm speaking of a person hypothetically and I have to type "he/she" or "(s)he" EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. Informally, I just stick "they" in. :'D

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maxiboom.livejournal.com

Sometimes I misuse "literally" because the purpose of the word has been called to my attention enough times that it becomes an intended act of absurdity. I don't know that this works, because it's buried under at least three layers of interpretation that don't exist unless you know they're there, but whatever!

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Lots of things about language are like that! I don't personally use literally that way but it's not like I can't understand what it means, geez, and everyone who insists that they don't is just lying.

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I know this is mean of me, but I can't help but wonder if this was written by a bitter, bitter former (or current) English major. People who are THIS STUPID about grammar are like those Math majors who are like "Can you do math? Oh wait no you can't but _I_ can." (And other majors have their own issues; that was just the first one I can think of.)

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maxiboom.livejournal.com

I can't imagine any other way this could be. Who sits down in their spare time and rises again a fanatic defender of proper subject/predicate agreement.

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Pretty much anyone with a formal education could pick up the stupid rules he's insisting on, though I don't know how many people would actually, uh, care. ENGLISH MAJOR SEEMS LIKELY, I mean, especially since he seems to be writing a blog semi-professionally and all.

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“if you’re using it a lot, you’re probably using it wrong.”

No, you’re using it wrongly. Using adjectives instead of adverbs is an all-too common error.

I LOL'ed at this. And then again when someone (as well as the dude who wrote the article, I think) was all "NUH UH I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT" and goes on to explain why using an example that has nothing to do with this statement. Good vs. well is one thing (though god I do hate it when people, especially people who claim to be good at grammar (LIKE MY STEPMOM), use it incorrectly), but what if, as I just did, instead of the word "wrong," he used "incorrect"?

In conclusion, OOKY OOKY

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God, what an asshole. I mean, say those out loud! Incorrect actually demonstrates this really well -- "You're probably using it wrong." versus "You're probably using it incorrect." -- because then you see that wrong can really, really quite obviously be used as an adverb, too, and incorrect can't be.

Hell, my syntax professor actually believes there's no such thing as a adverb/adjective distinction.

Ah, I misunderstood who was talking. WHATEVER GUY'S STILL A DICK.

Aha, I use well and good totally wrong when I speak casually. I also conjugate lots of verbs wrong and use ain't pretty liberally, so this is probably not surprising.

Edited Date: 2009-09-10 05:43 pm (UTC)

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Haha, yeah, this was a criticism someone else did of the guy who made the blog post. I was just amused at both of them and did a godawful job of expressing it. IF ONLY MY GRAMMAR WERE BETTER oh wait that had nothing to do with it

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unicorn

This guy are dumb.

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Literally.

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You guys are terrible and my self loves you.

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unicorn

hell I am too tired to use the subjunctive mood either correctly or incorrectly

but rest assured that were I, I would totally do it right now for you

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