It only takes one

"All of a sudden, I felt somebody flick the back of my hair and on the front of me came a maggot, which I flicked off me. It felt like they were crawling all over me because it only takes one maggot to upset your world. And as they're telling us to stay calm and seated, I see a maggot looking back at me and I'm thinking, 'These are anaerobic, flesh-eating larvae that the flight attendants don't have to sit with.'"
- Airline passenger Donna Adamo crystallises an important truth. (Emphasis mine.)

QES my ASS

I rather hope the Queen's English Society does form an Academy of English, just so I can break their rules. Especially after reading this:

"So why has it become politically correct of recent years to interchange the words ["sex" and "gender"]? This is not a matter of linguistics... This has emerged from the womens'-lib movement in the USA... that movement created an utterly artificial concept of human gender. No such thing had ever existed before and, despite all their efforts, it still does not exist as humans remain unavoidably defined by their sex as indicated above. These deluded women have not enhanced their status by rejecting their sexual identity in favour of an inappropriate gender identity... By what right do they consider that they can redefine the language? It is not theirs to play with; it belongs to all of us, men and women alike."

Yup, sure is. Feminists and others distinguish gender from sex because cultural stuff, like whether you can be a fire fighter or the President or wear a skirt or cry, gets confused with physical stuff, like whether you have tits. And also because, for a noteable chunk of the population, the two don't match, and no dictionary definition is going to change that fact. On which subject, the QES has this to say:

"There is a school of thought that now maintains that as homosexuality is becoming ever more widely socially acceptable and that a given individual, although endowed at birth with the sexual configuration of one sex, psychologically identifies with the other, it is less constraining to use the word 'gender' than 'sex'. This is perfectly ridiculous because it would be neither legally nor socially acceptable if someone applying for a job or to renew a passport were to enter the other sex on the application form just because he or she was psychologically attuned to that other sex."

This is not a concern for language. It's a demonstration of the power of language to define the world and the people in it - an attempt to appropriate the idea of clear communication to legitimise a particular social viewpoint.

What's more, it's based on bullshit. The rants about "political correctness" give zero examples¹, and even include serious criticism of joke terms like "vertically challenged", for which there would be no examples. The rants don't discuss etymology or usage², let alone science or psychology. They just assert - with no more authority than anyone else with a Web page and an axe to grind.

Or, to put it another way: This has nothing to do with linguistics. By what right do they consider that they can redefine the language? It is not theirs to play with; it belongs to all of us, men and women alike.

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¹ Actually, there is a single example given of "gender" being used in a 1987 legal finding in the US.
² We are informed that the word "queer" with the meaning "homosexual" has "slipped into oblivion". The Times has used it twice in the last week with this meaning (three times if you include a mention of Queer As Folk.)

(no subject)

Gosh, I'm a cranky old lady today. A cranky old red-headed lady.