John McWhorter is one of the greatest living experts on the English language—and many others, too. He’s an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia, a columnist at The New York Times, and he’s an unsung Broadway aficionado. He once told us he could not do an interview because he was busy rehearsing a cabaret show for his bungalow colony. It all sounds like a scene out of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
But in his day job, he is thinking about words, language, and—the not-so-controversial topic of pronouns. John is a true independent mind. He has been one of the most outspoken critics of liberal excess—his last book was called Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. But now? Now he’s taking a position that we suspect will provoke the other side.
In his new book, Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words, John makes the provocative case that the English language evolves in ways that don’t always make sense. But, he says, that’s okay. And he takes it a step further—saying the wide adoption of they/them in the singular, instead of he/him or she/her, works.
What are the stakes of these little words? For example, as a society, are we disrespecting women (and men) when we fail to acknowledge, in our language, who has dealt with the challenges of womanhood or manhood and who has not?
And what are the consequences of letting children adopt they/them pronouns, especially if it pushes them toward medical transition? At the same time, how do we create a society that is kind and inclusive but also reflective of reality? And can we even have both?
The broader context of this language conversation is about what can and cannot be said. We talk about this broader context—the state of the woke left, but also the rise of the woke right.
Bari puts all of these questions to the premier linguist and culture expert John McWhorter on this episode of Honestly.
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