Via someone on Twitter sometime this past weekend (I swear, I noted it somewhere, but I can’t find the note now), this awesome resource would come in exceptionally handy the next time you’re perusing a science magazine at a doctor’s waiting room, or your work’s lunch room newspaper.
Okay. New plan for world domination. I’m going to make a lot of money… somehow… off of creating a digital version of this that we can stick onto certain media websites with penchants for posting terrible pseudoscience. Like Google Sidewiki only designed to eviscerate nonsense-peddlers.
(What? It’s no worse a plan than those underpants gnomes have, is it?)
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Aliasalpha
January 25, 2012 at 9:52 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I thought they already had those; foxnews.jpg, conservapedia.gif, answersingenesis.bmp (after all they’re that backward they’d probably think bitmaps would be fine on the internet, probably 1600×1200 & shrunk in a table)
Veronica Abbass
January 25, 2012 at 8:01 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I would be happier with the sticker if the noun/pronoun agreement were correct: Journalist does not understand the subject he/she is writing about.
Just Visiting
January 25, 2012 at 9:11 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nope, sorry, “they” is a perfectly acceptable third person singular indeterminate usage. Just ask Shakespeare!
Besides, its not nearly as jarring as the indeterminate gender pronoun neologisms you sometimes see. [puts on flameproof underwear now...]
Veronica Abbass
January 25, 2012 at 9:19 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
They is “perfectly acceptable” to whom? Furthermore, if the author of the article in included with the article and the author is male say he or the author is female say she. Would it be too much trouble to make up stickers with each pronoun? How can you/we criticize journalists, when you/we don’t follow simple twenty-first century grammar rules?
F
January 25, 2012 at 11:31 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, those pretty much nineteenth century grammar rules are wrong. There has only been a short period in the history of the English language where some folks decided to prescribe against its use.
Relevant to this specific case, one could have two sets of labels printed, but that is a bit cumbersome, and makes it more difficult to address a gender which is not obvious from the author’s name or other immediately available clues, and those who would not identify with either binary gender at all. The neutral gender sharing the same space as the masculine gender is increasingly unacceptable for obvious reasons.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html
https://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/singular-they-and-the-many-reasons-why-its-correct/
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html
https://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2012/01/05/dogma-and-evidence/
SAWells
January 26, 2012 at 9:34 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Impersonal third-person-singular “they” was established in English usage long before a bunch of over-prescriptive Classics guys tried to make English follow Latin grammar rules. Same goes for “split infinitives”, by the way – you can’t split a Latin infinitive because it’s one word, so by Jove we must make it a rule that we don’t split English infinitives either. It’s prescriptive bullshit which serves only to distort natural language. Nonsense up with which we will not put, etc.
Warniong Labels for Journalists | PEI Curmudgeon's Blog
January 26, 2012 at 8:01 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
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