Adjusting to Modernity in American English
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.พ. 2025
- Language is a subjective thing, but one so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that accepting linguistic change brings out the conservative in all of us. But language is fundamentally and necessarily flexible, and aspects of modern America are making it imperative that we open up some big changes, particularly in relation to euphemism, profanity, and the use of pronouns.
Speakers: John McWhorter
No one can speak this way who is not a genius.
I love listening to McWhorter.
I always enjoy John McWhorter, whether or not I agree with him. This, I thoroughly enjoyed!
This dude is one long masterpiece of thought...and I am so grateful!
Black American! I'm with you John on that one. I'm a proud American who happens to be a black man. Also in my 50s. In my lifetime, we went from negro, colored people, afro American, black people, African American to now people of color. WTF!
mcwhorter refers to jordan peterson but is slightly incorrect: peterson's objection was to being FORCED to use certain pronouns.
Why does this only have a few hundred views? It's John McWhorter. I don't believe that asking for "they/their" singular pronouns is much different from asking to be called "his/her majesty"--it's pure adolescent narcissism, a need to make addressing _them_ a cognitive burden--but still, this is a really good lecture.
@Bailey, but "he" already includes everyone from the most effeminate gay man to the most ultra-butch special forces grunt. And "she" applies to Victoria's Secret models and shaven-headed motorcycle lesbians alike. Surely those two terms are already capacious enough to describe _everyone._ And given that almost everyone--including all straight people, all GLB people, and almost all trans people as well--learns to be comfortable enough with calling themselves either "male" or "female", I just don't understand why it's not on the tiny minority of in-betweeners to just pick one, for the convenience of all. A pronoun is a pointed finger. It's "hey you" or "that one". It's not about assigning you a role. Insisting on first-person use of "they" is assigning yourself a special, precious role, it seems to me, freed from the surly bounds of biology.
@@ChollieD AMEN.
@@germyw That feeling when you've completely forgotten a comment you made, and a year later somebody really likes it. :)
@@ChollieD THREE years later.
@@ChollieD5 years now, and it's even more true now than it was 5 years ago.
I think "me and Billy" is actually more common than Billy and me.
So interesting. Thanks
We now have audio of John McWhorter saying the big four swears.
He's dismissing the enormous elephant in the room.
He's talking about "they" as if it's a natural shift in the language, but he totally leaves out the subject of being 'forced' to use it.
They're pushing hard to be very woke.
I disagree for one simple reason. I've been using the plural they for as long as I can remember (before the SJW movement took root). Anecdotally, I've heard others doing the same -right or wrong- for 30 years at least.
Funnily enough, he said that "woke" is his favorite new word and you are using it incorrectly(I'M telling you this) .
Well, he clearly said that the blackboard rule "Billy and I" is actually unnatural, but everyone agjusted to it more or less but "they/them" is a new thing and it's a matter of time to get accostumed
There has been a lot of concept creep on, among other words, "bullying" and "violence", as people seek to tar conducts they disapprove of with those universally-recognized negative terms.
I once met a woman who referred to social workers, derisively as "dem welfares."
But is it they are or they is coming to dinner?
Sorry, John but 'No". The word 'they' is plural and that is how most of us see it. American English can change, who cares?
@Bailey Nobody is made _unsafe_ by "he" and "she".
I would honestly be shocked if you actually watched the talk. I think there are two arguments he makes regarding the use of "they". The first is a rebuttal of your argument that it is only used as a plural. I think he obviously succeeded at rebutting it. He gave many examples of common, singular uses of they. Common now and even common as far back as the 1400s. If you didn't buy his argument for why you should make the effort to use the singular "they" in a different way then is typical then fine, but it's very obviously not just a plural pronoun.
@Bailey Hulswit We care because generally the definitions of words aren't dictated, they evolve colloquially. Also, this usage of "they" creates ambiguity because before if you were talking about a group of people as well as one of the individuals in that group you could easily switch between subjects by switching pronouns between plural and singular. Making "they" refer to a specific person erases this specificity. There should be a better common 3rd person singular gender-nuetral pronoun (like "Xe/Xer" for instance)
@@sub-harmonik Oddly, it just has not evolved that way. It would be logical to have a gender-neutral pronoun, it would just make life, especially writing, so much easier! But it seems that such a change being prescribed by some central language authority just doesn't fly. It is going to have to evolve, painfully, via common usage. (Personally, I find the use to the word "they" to refer to a particular person just WRONG.)
William Keys I’m very literate but not a linguist, and my first thought was that “they” is used because it’s efficient. If you don’t say “they can turn in their paper” what would you say? There are problems with ‘he’ or ‘she’ and ‘he or she’ is always awkward and inefficient. Of course the proper thing would seem, “Tell the students they can turn in...” but the context may be the professor instructing that “each” student be told individually, or each student who asks be told, etc.
If this guy wants to spend his time making the case in a calm and reasoned voice as to why speaking English poorly is not merely acceptable but progress, that is his business. One does not need to go through life avoiding slang or idiomatic expressions, or assiduously avoid dangling a preposition, or any watch out for the grammar police watching your every move. However, when degrading the language is dictated, or even found acceptable, for political reasons, to serve a political agenda, and a radical one at that, then this is a different matter, and worth all the opprobrium one can muster. In short, if you wanna speak stupid, go ahead, but don't pretend to think it's smart. This too shall pass -- no one in his right mind is going to start referring to a boy or a girl as a "they" when he or she is not a third person plural. Gender is not a "social construct" and pretending otherwise is simply foolish, and denies the basic science that governs the world (or God if preferred).
The examples he gives for using "they" in a singular sense, such as Thackeray, and in some other cases, has happened and happens, but usually when the plural is implicit. Each student can hand in his paper when he likes, is proper English, but since "each student" is implicitly part of a group of students, it is "the students" to which the teacher refers. Hence "they" can hand in the paper. Technically it might be wrong, but it makes some sense. When John, the guy with the XY chromosome structure, wants to hand in "his" paper, then "he" can do it whenever "he" wants, is just the way it is, and likely will remain so, no matter what this guy says ("he" is wrong).
There are languages which have a genderless way to refer to people... why are you so triggered by english getting one? Also what about people using he/she referring to their pets when the right pronoun is it? If that is acceptable than “they” also is.
@aad dss People anthropomorphize their pets. You literally tell a dog, “good boy” or “good girl.” Same way parents talk about their baby as “he” or “she” even when “it” doesn’t display any remotely gendered behavior yet. Partly from biology and party from social necessities, animals develop roles for the two sexes; language, which naturally evolved in and around the various social norms of our species, is thus fitted to specify sex implicitly via gender. So when a female bear is being protective of her cubs, we say, “she’s angry,” because we recognize that this bear’s bahavior is analogous to how a female human mother would act in defense of her children. Sometimes gender roles are reflected in animals; other times, projected onto them.
John, is there nothing sacred🤣 you hurt me. Kids can't say fuk. Grown up people shouldn't either.
13:30 "That can't not happen." Is it ok to say that? Double negative or something. lol.
Yes, its fine to say. He's making the point that it is inevitable - "there's no way this won't happen" would be another way to think of it.
Yes, I understood what he was saying, I just didn't know if that was "proper" or not.
Yes.