Pedantic

post one

Kevin and I (recall that Kevin is the other half, behind the scenes, of Disaffected) are probably going to start a quick-hit video show called Pedantic. It’ll be me correcting everyone’s grammar and speech, hopefully in an amusing way. Most millennials are likely to hate it, as they have a generation-specific boatload of difficulty with the language unlike other generational turnovers. But if they can see it the way I saw reading Miss Manners’ columns and books (I was happy to get a better education in protocol), they can get something out of it.

This post will be a practice session. Feel free to leave comments about language matters you’d like to see me address.

WARNING TO DESCRIPTIVISTS: I am a prescriptivist. That is not negotiable. Your complaints are not welcome, and will be mocked or removed. I’m actually serious, yes. The whole world has to listen to you drone on in public trying to “correct” anyone who cites a language rule (you lot claim there are no such rules and it’s out of bounds to say that there are rules), and you don’t get to do that here. You already have the dominant position in the conversation; here you are not welcome. Take your “language has always changed and people like you can’t accept. . . .” somewhere else. Up your ass is a good start.

Common Misconstructions and Misuses Corrected

That/which/who

Rule: Objects and concepts take “that” and “which.” People take “who.”

WRONG: “I asked for a vegetarian menu for people that don’t eat meat.”

CORRECT: “I asked for a vegetarian menu for people who don’t eat meat.”

---

They

No, it’s not true that any use of the word “they” is acceptable, because “the singular they has always been used since Shakespeare!” Not true. The singular they is used only when the name or sex of the person being referred to is unknown or unclear. It is not used to denote a person whose sex and identity is known. That bad usage only started in earnest in the past 10 years with the explosion of “gender” madness.

It is absolutely not to be used to suddenly pretend that you don’t know the sex of Susan, who you named just a moment before.

WRONG: “Susan joined us at the lunch table but they went to the bathroom.”

CORRECT: “Susan joined us at the lunch table but she went to the bathroom.”

---

Pronunciation

Standard English exists. There is a favored accent and pronunciation, whether you like that reality or not. The favored, standard accent and pronunciation is how newscasters used to sound until the past 10 years when being “authentic” was used as an excuse to allow newscasters to sound ghetto or ESL and be praised for it.

The standard accent is not “white” and it’s not “racist.” It’s accessible to every single English speaker regardless of personal characteristics.

Regional accents, and class accents, have their place. I’m not trying to police how you talk to your friends and family informally. But if you want to sound like a real adult whose ideas should be treated seriously, it behooves you to speak in standard English with the preferred accent and pronunciation when speaking in public.

In the past 10 years, younger Americans have started adopting glottal stops that heretofore were only heard among Cockney Londoners or “urban” blacks. It’s low-class pronunciation. Wait, and stop. No, I didn’t just say something “racist.” Blacks and whites have equal ability to speak like grownups, and mimicking the gangbanger inner-city black culture was not a “cultural value” that ordinary respectable blacks approved of before recently. As you were.

Glottal stops are pauses in the vocalization of a word that happen in the middle of the word. They’re very obvious. American English does not normally use many glottal stops (though it uses some); the way young white kids speak now sounds like the way only kids from bad homes spoke a couple of decades ago.

Button—the modern millennial/gen Z pronunciation sounds like this: ‘Buh-INN.’ They don’t articulate the soft ‘t’ sound, they use a glottal stop.

Same thing with words like “mitten.”

Note (and see the entry on “Biden,” below): the first syllable of these words is emphasized. Only the first syllable. Vocalizing the short ‘e’ sound in the second syllable with equal stress as the first is wrong and sounds stupid.

Example:

“President BYE-DENN.” Stop articulating a hard ‘d’ sound. It’s not supposed be a hard ‘d’. And stop putting equal emphasis on -DEN. The second syllable of Joseph Biden’s surname is not pronounced the same way that your “family den” is pronounced. The second syllable barely has a vowel sound at all, and it is de-emphasized. It’s basically just the ‘n’ sound.

“My high school STEW-DENTS.” Again, stop with the DENTS. This is not a Dentu-Cream commercial. The word is pronounced by the same rule as “Biden.” The second syllable is de-emphasized, and it does not have a prominent short ‘e’ sound.

---

This has been PEDANTIC.