MCViewPoint

Luis Rivera

By Walter E. Block

https://walterblock.substack.com/p/ruining-language?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

People should be free to ruin the English language if they wish to do so. Bell Hooks wrote in all lower-case letters, and had done so for years, even before the plague of wokesterism arose. She signed her name “bell hooks.”

Many people no longer refer to he or him as inclusive of both genders. They resort to “his or hers” or, if they really want to virtue signal, they employ only “she” or “her.” Nowadays, some transgendered folk insist upon the plural when referring to them, individually: we should refer to such people as them, theirs. The latest off this particular turnip truck is to capitalize the word “black” when denoting people, albeit not to colors of inanimate objects, such as cars or shoes. Some in this vein now want to capitalize “white,” also, again only when indicating people. But the radical elements in this movement insist that only black be capitalized, not white. Why? That is because capitalization implies greater respect and since whites are unfairly and systematically privileged, this evens up the score. Whoa, I shouldn’t have said “systematically.” That is no longer politically correct. A thousand pardons. I should have written “systemically.” Sorry, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

This is all so silly. The purpose of language, well, one of the main purposes people have when they speak or write, is – wait for it – to communicate. Each of these deviations from traditional language reduces the ability of this institution to help us verbally interconnect with each other. At the extreme, we will each have our own personal language and we will truly enter the “Tower of Babel” where no communication at all will be possible. Happily, we are nowhere near that point, yet, but we are definitely trending in that direction.

Another aspect of this silliness is that the proponents are very often hoist by their own petards. For example, take the word “woman” or the plural, “women.” These words are favored by feminists vis a vis “men” or “men and women,” or “ladies and gentlemen.” But notice their last syllables! They indicate the hated males of the species. I therefore suggest, in the interests of further screwing up language, “wo” instead of “woman,” and “wos” instead of “women.” Here is my suggestion for the supplantation of the evil word “person.” For the same reason, this should henceforth be replaced by “perdaughter.”

See the rest here

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