Prof. Ron McClamrock's vaguely academic web home

Yo

There’s some talk that’s swirling around in popular linguistics about the question of whether ‘yo’ is emerging as the new gender-neutral pronoun. See the issue at Language Log here: Yo.

As I’ve noted before (hey, read the “Recently Viewed” links to the right), I think we already have a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun in American English: it’s “they”. We always use it in actual speech when we don’t know the gender of the person already: “Somebody drove my car, and they left the mirrors all screwed up.”

Life under administration

I was reminded recently that the expression “adminisphere” has actually entered my lexicon, and recalled that it was part of a useful triad of terms apparently in current military use that have excellent civilian application:

• Salmon Day: You spend all day swimming upstream just to get fucked and die.
• Adminisphere: The “powers that be” above your immediate superior.
• Blamestorming Session: The process of determining who in the adminisphere is at fault after a salmon day.

(Originally from eclecticism.)

Derrida vs. Wittgenstein

From Saint Gasoline, again.