Monthly Archives: July 2022

The ‘He-She —> They’ Transformation (2)

(Continued from https://ethicaldative.com/2022/07/26/the-he-she-they-transformation-1/) A pronoun is only as stable as the noun it stands for. If Niamh does not always, or ever, identify-reveal as she, nor Oisín as he, their customary pronouns aren’t fit for purpose. At the same time, … Continue reading

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The Secret of Drawing Is to Make a Mark

Complexity is what we create; our familiar cussedness comes out and easily defeats us. The harder things in life are the simple ones. Whenever I manage to disregard the rulemonger holding class in my skull-room, the method-nazi intoning, You are … Continue reading

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Don’t Let the Prefect Be the Enemy of the Gay

Where I live, a powerful local official causes a contribution to be withheld from an organization planning a pride festival in the town square. The official does not wish the county’s name to be associated with a drag show, a … Continue reading

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The ‘He-She—>They’ Transformation (1)

In respect of gender, Arabic nouns are divisible into three classes; (a) those which are only masculine [muḏakkar-un]; (b) those which are only feminine [mu’annaṯ-un]; (c) those which are both masc. and fem., or, as it is usually phrased, of … Continue reading

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Which One Is ‘They’? A Way Almost to Tell

Let’s work together, good citizens: Go ahead and write they instead of he or she if you must, but keep the -s ending on the verb. It will result in phrases such as they wants. People will want to amend … Continue reading

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Which One Is ‘They’? A Way Almost to Tell

Let’s work together, good citizens: Go ahead and write they instead of he or she if you must, but keep the -s ending on the verb. It will result in phrases such as they wants. People will want to amend … Continue reading

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Two Ghosts Between Covers

I converse from time to time with a bibliophile. It inspires me to recount a bookish tale. On the skids from academia I kept either of two books near me as a talisman, carrying one even to bars. They didn’t … Continue reading

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The Seer and the Seen

The musketeer —> the musked; the buccaneer —> the bucked; the mountaineer —> the mounted; the privateer —> the deprived; the profiteer —> the profited; the marketeer —> the marketed; the brexiteer —> the exited; the rocketeer —> the rooked; … Continue reading

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Texas Made Him. The New Yorker Claimed Him

What would John Bennet do? He’d keep it brief. (Nick Paumgarten, “John Bennet, Enemy of the ‘Blah Blah Blah’,” The New Yorker, 7-14-22) That’s how Nick Paumgarten starts his tribute to John Bennet, a New Yorker editor, recently deceased, who … Continue reading

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‘Crypto Casino’ and ‘Derp’

The way I see it, crypto evolved into a sort of postmodern pyramid scheme. The industry lured investors in with a combination of technobabble and libertarian derp; it used some of that cash flow to buy the illusion of respectability, … Continue reading

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