STICKS AND STONES may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
False.
In fact, words can be and are devastating. Want a different old adage?
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Plus one minus one equals zero. It’s like quoting the Bible. For every positive statement there is an equal and opposite negative statement. Still, we hide behind words as much to conceal our intents as to reveal them.
The worst part of that is usually the words are misused or at best misunderstood. For the most part, learning comes in layers. We are given simple rules as children with the expectation that as we mature and have more capacity for understanding, we will learn more complex linguistic uses that change the simple rules we’re given as children.
In English, nearly every child is taught the spelling rule, ‘i before e except after c.’ But by the time you’re in high school, you should have understood that the exception is when ‘eight foreign weightlifters deliver their counterfeit sleighs to Keith.’ By college, we learn there are more words in the dictionary that are an exception to the i before e rule than there are words that follow it.
Yet we continue to teach the rule to children as if it is the most basic commandment that will ever be pronounced and they should follow it forever. When someone makes a spelling error, we are all too happy to parade the rule out from second grade and chide them, even ridiculing their lack of education or poor spelling skills as a way to put that person down. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. People who got stuck in elementary school English and never advanced.
Let’s take another time-honored rule of the English language. ‘Never end a sentence with a preposition.’ Grade school writing instruction codified into a hard and fast rule that absolutely no one can keep from breaking. Perhaps you’ve heard of the conversation between the Southern Belle and the Yankee Princess:
“So, where y’all from?” asked the Belle
“Where I’m from, we don’t end a sentence with a preposition,” sniffed the Yank.
“So, where y’all from, bitch?” asked the Belle sweetly.
Well, it conformed to the ‘rule,’ right?
In reality, that was never a real rule of the English language. In the seventeenth century, ‘educated’ authors like John Dryden attempted to transfer Latin grammar rules to English. Latin does have a rule against prepositions at the end of a sentence. But in both spoken and written English, it is common to end sentences with a preposition.
A famous, possibly apocryphal, story of Churchill being upset by a young clerk’s editing of his speech declared, “That is something up with which I will not put.” Which fails on two counts. The falsity of the rule stated above, and the utter lack of understanding of complex forms of English. To “put up with” is not a preposition. It is a verbal phrase and is not considered a preposition at all!
But once again, we’ll trot the old rule out as a way to ridicule someone who may speak a different dialect or have a different level of education, even though they are using the language correctly.
The ‘rules’ when they exist are often meant to be broken for effect, especially in creative writing. When I released my Hero Lincoln Trilogy back in 2016, I received messages as soon as the third book appeared, explaining to me in elementary detail that the correct phrase was ‘going for the jugular’ which was a vein in the neck and I should correct the title immediately. I had to explain to each of the people who pointed this out that novelists often use what is called a ‘play on words.’ In this case, the target in the story was a circus performer and the villains were going for the juggler, a person who throws items into the air and catches them. Hence, Going for the Juggler.
And I confess that I nearly fell into the same trap when I read Lazlo Zalezac’s Thunderbolt and Lightening. But I restrained myself from the instant reflex to correct someone, and discovered late in the book that the title had a specific meaning to the main character and marked a change in his outlook on life.
Going for the Juggler is volume three in the Hero Lincoln Trilogy set in Lazlo Zalezac’s Damsel’s in Distress universe. It is available in eBooks at ZBookStore and in a single paperback at online retailers.
Most recently, I’ve been targeted for my use of they/them when referring to a non-binary person. I have been scolded repeatedly for using they/them as a singular and told the terms are exclusively plurals. I’m told in absolute terms that I can’t use a plural for a singular in the English language. If I must use a term other than he or she, the term should be ‘it.’
Of course, that is absurd. The pronoun ‘it’ is not used for a person of non-specific gender, but rather for an inanimate object. Furthermore, English speakers have historically used they/them/their as a singular when referring to a person of indeterminate gender. For centuries! Take, for example, the statement that might be heard over any school PA system. “Would the person who left their backpack in the hall come to the office to claim their property?”
But it is so much harder to accept that usage when we are looking at a person we have already determined doesn’t have a right to bear that usage. That’s what we are really saying when we try to cite this rule of the language. “You don’t have the right to exist as someone I can’t define.” We’ll go so far as to make it illegal for such people to exist in many states even though they have been known in hundreds of world cultures for millennia.
And need I remind you that we use a plural for a singular all the time? You. It makes no difference if I am speaking to an individual or a crowd. I say ‘you.’ And I always use the plural verb, ‘you are,’ even when I am speaking to an individual.
Get the fucking pole out of your ass and just refer to people the way they prefer! There is no ‘rule’ in English that forbids it.
I’ve scarcely scratched the surface of how we attack people using words and how that can be used to dehumanize people who don’t use words according to our rules.
I was instructed just the other day that my use of a phrase, ‘For a while,’ as a stand-alone sentence was incorrect and that I should make it a full sentence. People in conversation use phrases instead of complete sentences all the time. The cited instance was in dialogue. “I went to college. For a while.” It indicates a post-sentence qualifier in a conversation. Is it a full sentence? No. Does it matter? Only to a pedant who can’t stand to have people talk in a way that is outside their comfort zone.
Do not mistake me. My writing is far from perfect and I accept feedback and corrections gladly. I depend on my editors. I cite these instances as ways we disguise our true intent with the weaponizing of words. I object to corrections and rules only when they are used to assert dominance, denigrate others, and dehumanize people. At that point I am a crusader for the rights of all people everywhere.