#you: politically incorrect. me an intellectual: grammatically incorrect

[deathshallbenomore]

sì però. come si dice buongiornissimo in arabo

[thessalian]

Thess vs the Singular ‘They’

Managed to get through lunch with my mother with only a single argument, and that was more a semantic thing than anything else. ...Well, mostly.

She started well - she actually started the conversation about whether or not you’d had ‘the surgery’, a trans woman going into the women’s bathroom shouldn’t be an issue because you’re using a cubicle anyway and you’re not exactly exposing children to this and adults - real, sensible adults - wouldn’t necessarily care about an accidental flash of penis anyway. She gave a so-called ‘grey area’ of gym changing rooms and I flagged up that all gym changing rooms have or at least should have areas that provide privacy for those who want or need it and she acknowledged the point. So she’s nominally for trans rights, so I guess that’s better than I would have expected...

And then we got onto the singular ‘they’.

Mum insists that it’s grammatically incorrect to refer to a singular person with a plural verb, as you would have to do with ‘they are’. Thus she will never comfortably refer to anyone with the singular ‘they’, even if they ask her to. Because of that one tiny issue that she personally has with verb tense.

I asked her what she’d do if someone asked her to please use they/them pronouns with her. She said that if she didn’t know them well, she’d shrug it off and call them whatever she personally wanted to call them because they weren’t close and she wouldn’t have to refer to them often anyway, and if it was someone she was close friends with... Well, apparently her reaction would be, “I suppose, but I think it’s silly”.

So then I asked her what she’d say if they, close or not, asked her if she would please respect their right to be referred by their preferred pronouns. Answer: “Will you respect my right to call you ‘that person’ instead of ‘they’?”

I came so close to blowing up. I did tell her that her so-called rights didn’t mean shit in that situation (more politely, obviously). She kept insisting that it was ridiculous and she wasn’t going to use the plural verb ‘are’ to refer to a single person even if she didn’t know their gender. So I told her that it was perfectly acceptable usage and she just kept saying, “No it isn’t!” And as per usual, when I tried to close the conversation with, “Look, just Google the singular ‘they’, okay?”, she kept pressing. “No! It isn’t! You can’t use a plural verb to describe a single person! It’s wrong! It’s silly! It’s incorrect and I am perfectly right to refuse to do it no matter what!” So I just kept telling her to Google the singular ‘they’. Pretty sure linguistics is going to bear me out on this. Also pretty sure that she’s not going to care.

I pray my mother never meets a gender-neutral person. I don’t want to deal with that mess.

Seriously, most of the conversation went along the lines that my intellectually disabled aunt’s carer back in Canada is putting her on increasing amounts of sedatives, now having graduated to very low-dose thorazine. So my mother’s having to go back there a couple of times this month to meet with carer and doctors and all manner of mess to try to sort this bullshit out, and all I could really do was provide some aromatherapy soap because if Auntie Mickey is really stressed and grumpy all the time (which I doubt, but never mind), any sensible person starts with stuff like aromatherapy as treatment; they don’t go straight to ativan and graduate from there to thorazine.

[ushamartinuniversity]

What are the Advantages of doing BA (Hons) English?

The B.A. English (Hons) program aims to allow students to read and respond to novels, plays, and poetry across different genres. Students study a wide range of literature, socio-culture, and political issues concerning contemporary English. There's no denying that B.A. English Honors is one of the most popular options for students planning to pursue a bachelor's degree after class 12th. Other students frequently regard the student taking this course as a member of an elite group. This course not only teaches you about literature but also encourages you to critically analyze it, ultimately challenging your perceptions and altering your personality. The diversity of the English language is well-known. However, it's tough to come up with a comprehensive list of benefits. B.A. (Hons) English, however, is a subject that should only be pursued by people who are truly passionate about it. Being a tough subject, it has the potential to draw people who have no interest in literature into a pit with no way out. As with other literature fields, it entails reading literature books as well as history and social studies. Before counting the benefits of any subject, one must first comprehend his or her area of interest. And if you ask me about the best college to pursue B.A. English (Hons), I would suggest Usha Martin University, Ranchi, Jharkhand.

7 Advantages of pursuing B.A. (Hons) English:

·  B.A (Hons) English will make you consider all sides of a situation. Because the course is designed with the perspective that everything is subjective, it will not tell you whether the perspective is correct or incorrect. This enables one to see beyond their point of view and understand the viewpoint of the person across the table.

·  This degree can lead to a range of careers in industries such as mass communication, academia, writing and publishing, creative writing, civil service, public relations and communications, hospitality, advertising, and marketing, among others.

· B. A. (Hons) English program will help in the development of your personality. People who enjoy displaying their abilities must be able to communicate effectively. It enhances your communication abilities while transforming you into a confident graduate.  

·  Through combining practical and theoretical lessons, this program helps students to improve their grammatical abilities.

· English honors course Introduces students to the many periods of literary history's social, political, cultural, economic, and intellectual contexts.

·  It offers a deep awareness of the world of literature and allows students to critically appreciate major literary works from throughout the world.

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Source Url: What are the benefits of doing B.A. (Hons) English?

[thoughtsandsensibilities]

Why hello, I didn’t see you there...

A bit of context

Hi there, thought I would make a post by way of introduction.

I haven’t fully decided as of yet, but I am pretty sure I am making my blog to be anonymous. My reasoning behind this fits nicely with the primary motivation for this blog. Firstly, the obvious personal aspect of a blog, mentioning activities or people, may come back to bite me in the arse one day. Posting incognito will naturally be safer (similar concept to going incognito watching porn… oh shit now you must know I am a guy - or one of the girls that admit to it... so now you know i am immature as well). Secondly, I feel I have a few bits and bobs of information currently suspended in a persistent vegetive state, accumulated over years of a passion for learning (a passion that although still exists is buried deep under a pile of metaphorical shit.

Thirdly, I am also interested in the psychological influence of this anonymity on the way I will express myself. This, when combined with the hypothesised positive psychological effects that blogging or journaling can bring, make for a worthwhile experiment. How much different will it be to other communicative social networks, such as twitter and facebook? Although both of these concepts encourage unencumbered expressionism, in my view it is severely limited by a social environment that breeds judgement and insecurity. I am not talking about free speech, of which I might add I am a staunch advocate for (in all forms even the most morally repugnant), but I am referring to classically ‘speaking your mind’ in the face of unwanted attention or critique. Thus, blogging may serve a purpose to myself, and others in my circumstances. A medium to express your thoughts and desires; a utopia in which innermost fears and emotions can be articulated without fear of judgement; a platform to resist that temptation to conform to the will of societal populism; a virtual memoir in which to pour hopes, dreams and disappointments; an electronic diary to systematically narrate your day to. The opportunities, endless. Although I am categorically saying that I will not use this blog as a personal collection of mental detritus and emotional sob stories, be fully prepared to witness a crying face emoji now and again.

So after all that bullshit, what the fuck is this blog about. This blog consists of thoughts that somehow manage permeate my brain cells, separate to all the preoccupying shit that life brings. That is not to say that the posts do not reflect on my personal experiences (this is, of course, inevitable, however some may elude to my life more directly than others). I know what you are thinking… just some more thick, sloppy BS. And while you would be 100 per cent correct, please indulge me for a few moments longer. I want you to remember that I have a life (the last time I checked) and hence me sitting down to write shit is a big deal so do not expect to read drivel, more than half of the time. These thoughts will range in content… from researched academic observations to conspiracy theories I subscribe to (no, I will not waste your time on ’jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams’ crackpot theories and am not ignorant enough to take anything at face value - further on this in due course); from my complaints about flaws in people, society and social constructions, to professions of the beauty and complexity of the world and human nature; from confessions of minor misdeeds committed to profound philosophical and existential observations about life itself. I can’t really tell you what you will be reading over the coming weeks and months, but I can say that everything I write will be poised, discerning and aim to offer at least a marginal level of insight.

I can say with a fair bit confidence that I am an interesting individual, which can partly be accredited to my intense intellectual passion for the human, spiritual, scientific and socioeconomic development of the human race. Armed with (minimal) knowledge in the academic spheres of (yes, you guessed it! another long, unnecessary, grammatically incorrect semicolon list)… history (everything and anything but a distinct focus on the human dimension and mindset behind events), political sciences (particular fascination with the interaction of actors on an international level and I am a proponent of structural realism; politically conservative in the purest sense of the term, against populist socialism), economics (my primary academic focus - development and behavioural economics are my fortes; supporter of free market economics), philosophy (fascination with metaphysics and epistemology and well as conceptualisations of value theory; impassioned atheist) and psychology (currently balls deep in existential-humanistic theories, but also have made partial sense of cognitive and social psychology). So, aside from telling you about the heaps of shit I know, the point of me listing my abstract, somewhat redundant, collection of interests is to demonstrate a love and unrelenting fascination for the species I am proud to be a part of (cos, you know, fuck being a sheep). An apt scholastic discipline is potentially anthropology, but the perfunctory and unspecific nature of the branch of study has deterred me from frequent application of the term. I am an esoteric believer in the power your experiences have in moulding the person you are, I am sure that microexpressions in my writing style have given you some clues as to my demographic profile, and the immense power of the human mind in processing and manifesting information and experiences. I enjoy leveraging this belief as well as acute observation in dissecting the world around me.

Oh and one more thing, I tend to ramble. But if you made it this far, I am sure that fact has dawned upon you by now.

By the way, apologies on the shitty design. I will take a shot at improving it when I have a bit of time and a few more posts to work with.