Slogans are for people who need to be told what to think.
I was made aware today that someone in my workplace now goes by "they" rather than "he".
To be perfectly fair, that someone did not ask me to use "they" as a particular pronoun. I was nudged in that direction by others, and to be even more fair, I've instantly found it extremely difficult to use this "pronoun of choice". And frankly, it had nothing to do with "a gender", per se, or in fact, any politics.
Let me explain.
I worked with this someone for a while now ("this someone" or "this person" will be my choice of words from now one).
I've always found "this person" a good sport, a bit edgy - in a emo sense - but for the most part quite pleasant to be around. Even when one day, out of blue, "this person" showed up in an actual dress.
There was no stereotyping of what a woman "should" look like. Just a dress. Edgy, in a emo sense. Perfectly in agreement with the character of "this person" - or at least with my up-to-date perception of "this person's" character. And guess what? I actually loved the way "this person" wore the dress and said as much, without knowing any of the "pronoun"-nonsense or someone nudging me to do it.
Yet, today, when "nudged", I've found remarkably difficult to refer to "this person" using "they".
Why?
As I said, it has nothing to do with "the gender" or politics. It has to do with the fact that pronouns have meaning and, as such, a purpose in every day conversation.
For me, "they" as pronoun marks plurality and I've always used it as such - independent of any gender. While I am happy to avoid gender-relevant pronouns, such as "he" or "she", I refuse to change meaning to the word based on, well, someone' subjective reality - or even more precisely, I refuse to change widely accepted, meaningful word and the way I and billion others use it every day based on the demands of the "nudge" unit.
Funny thing is, if "this person" decided to show up wearing a dress every single day, I probably would not care. Now, suddenly, I am required to adapt completely new awareness, "reality" and approach, perhaps even, re-learn the language just to achieve...what exactly?
Well, as far as I can say, it will achieve nothing much but pandering to the crowd. Hence, I will not do it.
There are ways to be respectful without giving away the meaningful; when everything is "they", then nothing is "they".
This was a very late recording contrasting two news articles about Omicron - so called "Covid super-strain".
I know I haven't been around lately...work...life...However, the 12-years-old clip popped into my feed and I wanted to share it. The reason? This clip provides the great basic understanding into what are the issues with so-called "evidence" related to anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change and the lack of logic when it comes to the interpretation of such evidence. The sad reality is that even after 12 years from this clip, we are still forced to endure nonsensical conclusions that hurricanes hitting Florida are caused by big bad climate change.
The mainstream media is doubling down on the alarmism, and it is not hard to guess why. However, to be fair, consider my little observation an educated guess, an opinion, rather than the fact. Time will show whether I am right.
(1) 'Climate change affects everyone': Europe battles wildfires in intense heat by Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/spain-portugal-battle-wildfires-heatwaves-scorch-southern-europe-2022-07-17/)
If you spent time in Southern Europe, Mediterranean, during summer season - July and August in particular - you probably know that heat-induced wildfires are nothing new. In fact, they are quite common and remarkably devastating for the affected communities, and I have witnessed several in person. Most of the time, the wildfires occur due to heat igniting grasses, especially in the areas where there are broken glass or broken bottles. The glass serves as an amplifier for the sun rays, especially, in the vicinity of dry grasses, or even dry pine needles, and as ...
