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April 2, 2005
Can I Have a Word with You
You've probably noticed it by now, but the English language has some problems. The inexplicable spellings and the strange pronunciations are all too familiar to us. However, in my opinion the biggest flaw in our language has to do with the personal pronoun you. When I say or write the sentence, "You are invited to the party." Am I in fact addressing one particular person, or am I referring to the whole group? Often the intended recipient is made clear by the speaker's body language or the context, but this is not always the case. Therefore, in order to reduce the possibility that you will have uninvited guests hanging out at your next get-together, I suggest we bring back the word ye. We would pronounce it as "yee" and use it to refer to the plural form of you; you would stand for one person and ye would refer to multiple. This is already the pattern with I and we. So are ye with me?
One other thought that I must pass along. The politically correct way to refer to a nonspecific or generalized third person is far too cumbersome. Consider this sentence, "He or she may find that it is difficult for him or her to earn enough money to pay for his or her medical bills." Pushah! That's ridiculous. I say we invent a new word to represent the gender-neutral third person. Instead of saying or writing he/she or her/him we should just use the letter H. All of these generic pronouns have the letter H in them, so let's just go with that. Remember, we only use a single letter for the first person pronoun "I", so what's the problem with following that pattern? In place of his or her we can use the word, H's. Use H and H's in the above sentence and see how simple and efficient it becomes. If a person uses this method instead of the current system, H will find it much faster and easier to communicate effectively.
Posted by fstone at April 2, 2005 9:48 AM
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