[ExI] Sheer Idiocy

[William Flynn Wallace]

Someone somewhere reminded us that Shakespeare (who never spelled his name
that way) used 'they'as singular.

Curious tie-in - research in the mountains of TEnnessee revealed that
language of S's day was alive and well there, primarily among Blacks.

So 'they is', while sounding Black, is really Shakespearean.   bill w

On Wed, May 3, 2023 at 11:06 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> On 02/05/2023 14:28, Ben wrote:
>
> >…Spike, I think you're right. Everything seems to be classed as 'hate
> speech' now, even the most innocent things. Actually, rather than
> 'neo-Victorian', I think a better term might be 'neo-McCarthyism'… Ben
> …
>
>
> Eh, there is a silver lining to this cloud Ben.  I have been experimenting
> with language, for I have long wanted to be fully inclusive while doing
> away with the clumsy terminology “his or her” and “he or she,” being as
> this interrupts the rhythm of writing.  The good old “they” and “their”
> replaces those awkward compound pronouns and supplies us with a new
> innovative awkward pronoun.  The “they” path gives away singular/plural in
> favor of being gender non-specific.  However, I discovered a way to make it
> work: the verb immediately following the pronoun is now tasked with
> specifying singular/plural.  It sounds a little funny, but it accomplishes
> the task.  For instance:
>
>
>
> I saw someone walking down the street.  They is gone now but they was here
> about a minute ago.
>
>
>
> That makes it specifically about one person, with unknown gender and
> inclusive of all the genders and letters we now have, including those who
> self-identify as non-humans and even those who self-identify as machines
> (we will be dealing with that pretty soon too: people who claim to be
> conscious robots.)
>
>
>
> Similarly we can write inclusive possessive pronouns while losing no
> meaning.  The term “his or her” is replaced with theys, but note there is
> no apostrophe as in other possessive pronouns with the exception of the
> term its.  The term its is different from the contraction it’s.  Similarly
> theys is different from they’s, the latter being a contraction for “they
> is” which is now grammatically-correct gender-nonspecific singular.
>
>
>
> I used this form in a coupla previous posts and noticed no one squawked,
> even though Gates put a squiggly red line below it.  The SAT-writers will
> need to get with the program forthwith.  We can accommodate everyone here,
> with only minor adjustments to our thinking, and furthermore, as a bonus we
> note that there have been American dialects which have long used “they is”
> and “they was” as noted in Mark Twain’s works.  Now we get to enjoy a new
> humility as we realize those we thought of as uneducated bumpkins were
> ahead of their time, they were right all along.  Free humility, no extra
> charge, you’re welcome, my pleasure.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
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