Silver Jacket

Category: Peeves

  • Lingo Mania

    DadMy dad's first book just came out: L.eadership in N.onprofit O.rganizations by B.arry D.ym and H.arry Hutson (B.arry and H.arry!). [I have added periods to prevent my parents (H.arry and Sally!) from accidentally discovering my blog via Google. See likely scenario.] He's a leadership and organizational consultant but has decided to write books too. No doubt there is some source of value (and income) in this line of work, but to be honest I fell asleep reading the back cover. It advertises features like

    "Chapters on leadership constructs such as fit, dynamics, readiness and flow which provide useful insights and methods to enable success,"

    and the "Overarching concept of alignment which reframes leadership as an active process where the awareness of and response to the interplay of multiple, relevant factors matters more than charisma, pedigree or power."

    Super. I am reminded of Office Space, or the multiple websites enumerating managerial lingo/jargon/buzzwords for giggles. Such as:

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  • Language Police, Episode I

    Call me a fogey. Call me a prescriptivist. Call me a pompous prick. But I still routinely flinch at the use of plural pronouns to signify gender-neutrality where singular pronouns are required. ("If you have a friend in trouble you should help them.") The correct generic pronouns are he and him. (I learned this lesson long ago from a female English teacher.) If you are uncomfortable with the practice, you can use the more awkward he/she and him/her, or simply alternate genders. But I think most people use they and them not for aesthetic or political reasons but out of laziness. Ok, in casual speech I can understand it. I do it sometimes too.

    But if the gender is explicitly specified, I cannot tolerate it. Example from a website I encountered recently:

    "Every Valentines day you rack your brains for that one special, unique gift that will show your wife or girlfriend [singular, feminine] that you really do care for them [ouch] more than any other."

    Update: In multiple posts, the linguists at Language Log have argued the case that singular they is grammatically correct. In this post they cite Shakespeare as precedent and call me a "particularly puristic pusillanimous pontificator" (but not a pompous prick.)

    For more on the subject, go here and here.