The war against semantics

‘My pronouns are xe and xem’ said the name badge on the supermarket checkout person’s uniform.

And I thought, good for xem, because that wasn’t ruining grammar.

How to explain that the transgender community are doing my head in because they are stealing words? (I don’t mind them inventing new ones.)

I want to explore my anguish about this in a way that enables me to go on a journey of self-discovery, identifying the way I feel. However, I also desperately want not to offend the trans community, because if I do that I’m done for, because they are the most powerful people on the planet.

When I say they, in that context, that is the correct use of a plural pronoun. But we are losing the plural pronouns because some people insist on appropriating them for the purpose of denoting the singular.

Look, I like millions of others do not care what anyone wants to identify as. It’s none of my business. Call yourself what you like. I support you wholeheartedly in being who you want to be.

What I do mind about is the butchering of the English language. Why is this argument never deployed whenever someone is persecuted for refusing to say ‘they’ in the singular?

The primary defence should not be a religious objection. One must take a stance for correct grammar, a much nobler cause than any form of bible bashing. Never mind what poor old God intended.

What are we going to be left with if they keep on taking words away from us, to re-assign them some other meaning?

What is going to be the word we can use to specify, without confusion, the notion of multiple persons if and when ‘they’ becomes as synonymous with a single person as with two or more people?

The Catholic teacher in Ireland who was suspended for refusing to say ‘they’ in relation to one pupil is one of countless who might be penalised if we carry on allowing the meaning of words to be changed so that we cannot keep up with the latest meaning unless we are given regular briefings on what we are required to say.