Behind large cultural trends sometimes lurk shy truths waiting to be called out.  For me, two events over the past couple of days called out such a nugget from the shade.

First, I heard a screed from a loud...woman?...letting us know in no uncertain terms that if we are not willing to use her preferred pronouns, then we shouldn't address her at all.

Second, for the first time, I saw an email at my (somewhat stodgy and conservative) workplace with the tag line "Pronouns: She, Her, Hers."

The combination caused a dim LED bulb to flicker above my head, illuminating a really, really important piece of information that has been hiding in plain sight: what do you mean, your pronouns?

In a classic example of leftist verbal subterfuge, the assumption that pronouns are owned by the addressed subject seems to have been slid right past us underneath the larger chaotic mishmash of transgenderism.

That is so profoundly wrong: they ain't your pronouns.  They ain't my pronouns.  They are the English language's pronouns.

No language or culture can long endure without a common and accepted set of rules that define the structure and meaning of our shared language.  We do not get to define society in terms of what we want; we interact with culture according to a shared set of assumptions and beliefs.  My identity is not defined by what I want in isolation; it is defined by the way in which I interact and integrate with the rest of my culture.  It is a shared endeavor.  The insistence that one gets to choose one's pronouns makes no more sense than insisting that dogs should be called sausage monsters.  We don't get to invent our language on the fly.

My name is Patrick.  I have some control over that in that I could petition to get a legal name change, or opt for a casual nickname like P.J. (ack!).  But what I don't get to do is declare the rules of the English language null and void and declare myself a "she" — or, God forbid, "xe."  The fact that some people are confused as to whether they are a she or a he cannot be allowed to override the imperative of a shared set of rules about how we use our language.  The desire to define the language in terms of our own narrow emotional insecurity, and demand that everyone else genuflect to our whim, is reflective of a deep and dark narcissism that has infected a disturbingly large chunk of our population.

I have in some quarters been known as a grammar Nazi, and my jihad against improper use of apostrophes has occasionally resulted in awkward social situations.  Perhaps I take it a little too far.  But the words we use to describe ourselves are not window dressing, nor mere bandages with which to dress our emotional wounds.  Language serves as the sinew that binds our shared experience and defines who we are.  As with so much in our time, we deconstruct it at great peril.

So go right ahead and call yourself whatever you wish.  Just don't expect me to play along.  You don't own the language, and you don't own your pronouns.

Image: Nathanael Hevelone via Flickr, CC BY-SA-NC 2.0.

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