Go Gentle

This is a thing now. Elderly (no-longer-young) people are thanking their lucky stars that they’ll soon be able to opt-out of Madness gawn Absolutely Mad. Enough already. Please, may we be excused?

Brendan O’Neill and Douglas Murray are not alone. Lots of us are exasperated by gender-non-specific individuals requiring plural pronouns and butchering language and grammar.  Then they add insult to injury by carelessly calling them/selves “I” rather than ‘we’. Even Afua Hirsch, an earnest supporter of the plural pronoun malarkey caught herself out by accidentally using the explicitly masculine terms “he” and “him” in the course of arguing the case for ‘them’ and ‘their’ We/I  am/are are not amused. None of us are. Including me.

Genuine question: What do they do about languages where inanimate objects have genders? Animals? What about, say, “La France”?  Must they be plural now? Are France plural?

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What about that virtue-signalling investigation into Islamophobia that the Conservative Party was bumped into announcing, live on TV? In particular, what about Boris “calling Muslim women ‘letter-boxes and gangsters’?“ Didn’t the lady from Vice UK (As per Craig’s piece about today’s Daily Politics) comprehend that  - for some serendipitous reason known only to him - Boris was arguing against the wretched Burka ban, and when he likened the appearance of the Muslim uniform to a letterbox (which, with its slits-for-eyeholes, it kind of is) he wasn’t actually calling Muslim women  letterboxes or bank robbers? 

Are people so terrified of causing offence that they’re actually arguing for a blasphemy law these days? No bloody wonder we see our hastening demise as a blessed release. 

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Here in Cornwall, there’s a tradition called “Darkie Day”. I haven’t witnessed it personally, but I heard that it was tagged ‘controversial’ some time ago and (to avoid being racist) was re-titled “Mummer’s Day” and granted a reprieve. (Not banned) 

“In spite of the fact that the police were brought in twice to film the events, and both times declared that there was no evidence of offensive behaviour, the spectacle of an entire town taking to the streets with blackened faces and singing about 'niggers' was understandably deemed by some to be inappropriate. In response, the festival organisers agreed to change the name of the event to Mummers Day (which brings it into alignment with England) and to try to change the songs back to the original Cornish ones.

We don’t know if the event is/was/will be currently permitted to go ahead, or if blacked-up revellers risk being convicted of hate crime.   

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Quick, Dial 999! I’ve had a racist /Islamophobic/transphobic/homophobic/politically incorrect thought and I want to turn myself in and maybe go gentle into that good night.

Sad case

Following the Sam Smith controversy,  in July 2017 i mentioned gender fluidity within British Gas:

“…… British Gas now uses gender non-specific pronouns”
“Our engineer will call”. “They’ll be coming on…”  

Perhaps there was to be a team of engineers?
But no. It was just one guy by the name of David. (I assumed he was a he, which he was /  they were.)

A day or so ago I saw a story in the Times. In. The. Times!! concerning the sad case of a 13-year-old ‘child’ whose mother fed him/her/ thousands of calories till he/she suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. 

The child was given a gender-fluid pronoun “Them“ / “Their” - to such an extent that the gender of the child was effectively concealed. Throughout the report, the reader was not given a clue as to whether the child was male, female or in fact plural, (although that seems unlikely as surely it would have had ‘children’ instead of ‘child’, but you can’t be sure of anything since conventional grammar went down the pan. It’s a conspiracy to confuse.

I presume the original report came from some godforsaken news agency and was copied lock and stock. Guess which news organ was the sole purveyor of ‘the truth’?  The BBC? Non. (Pardon my French.) 

The Metro? Wrong again.

How about the Manchester Evening News?  Not really.

Ok, I’ll tell you. It was The Sun wot done it. (Boy. RIP) Oh, and the New Zealand Herald. (A bit behind the times down there, but don’t worry, they’ll catch up soon)

Gender fluidity within British Gas

I’ve only been away for a couple of weeks (it seems like years) but this seemed odd to me. 

Am I the only one who didn’t know that British Gas now uses gender non-specific pronouns? 

I received an email about an appointment. 

“Our engineer will call” it said. “They’ll be coming on…” Perhaps there was to be a team of engineers? 

But no. It was just one guy by the name of David. (I assumed he was a he, which he was  they were.

He she and it

When people undergo ‘gender reassignment’ - no - even if a ‘he’ simply decides that he wishes, henceforth, to be known as ‘she’, the possessive pronoun instantly seems to leap out and smack you in the face.  Take this morning’s news about Chelsea Manning,  formerly Bradley. 

There were more “shes" uttered in the space of a few seconds than I’ve ever heard in an entire episode of the ‘Mr and Mrs’ gameshow. Not that I’ve ever watched one. 

It’s as though they’re deliberately hitting you in the chops with a wet fish. Gratuitous possessive pronouns really grate.