#6. Girls wear pink

Before I start, I must thank my good friend Thomas for suggesting this topic for my next blog. And I'm going to take this opportunity to publicly say that I'm going to miss him very much when he joins the RAF but I wish him all the happiness in the world as he flies off into the sunset (that's what they do isn't it, like Topgun?).

Now I shall begin.  The topic under scrutiny this Saturday morning is gender, or lack of it.  English as a language doesn't have gender as other languages such as German and French do. However, we do have gendered words, for example "his" and "she".  But in the modern world today the occasion can occur when we just don't know the gender of a person. The androgynous look is everywhere, you just have to look at these images of Agyness Dean or Ollie from Made In Chelsea to see how nowadays, we can constantly push the boundaries of constructed genders.

Additionally, I read a study that revealed that the first thing we notice about another human being is their gender. Not skin colour, eyes, hair colour or shoes, it's their gender, or rather their biological sex.  I'd be surprised if you hadn't been in the situation where you just can't work it out and that awkward, embarrassed feeling develops in the pit of your stomach, can I call them Sir or Madam?

Now, the English language has accommodated for this by using the gender neutral pronoun "they". Although many people may tell you that "they" should only be used for plural, there are many occasions where you just don't know the gender of an individual and therefore "they" has to be used to avoid offence.

Richard Mason tells us how the use of "they" is not, as you would imagine, a completely modern development.


"Not only is this use very natural and common in spoken English, but in written English it is acknowledged by the OED. Singular "they" (or "their" or "them") appears in Shakespeare, in Chaucer, in Spenser, in Swift, in Defoe, in Shelley, and in Byron. It was used by William Thackeray, by Walter Scott, by George Eliot, by Jane Austen, by Charles Dickens, and by Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as by George Bernard Shaw, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, W.H. Auden, George Orwell, and C.S. Lewis. American writers who used "they" in the singular include Walt Whitman, Edith Wharton, and F. Scott Fitzgerald."

Now to Thomas' input. He told me of a family in Canada who are raising their baby gender neutral. By that I mean that apart from them, the baby's brothers and a handful of midwives and doctors, no one knows the gender of their new baby, Storm.  The parents have said that they do not want to force gender and stereotypes upon their children and they want their children to explore who they are naturally.

Now whilst I do believe that we shouldn't presume girls wear pink and play with barbies and boys wear blue and eat worms, I have slight concerns when it comes to being gender neutral and have the inkling that they are setting baby Storm up for bullying. And furthermore, we are not linguistically ready for a gender neutral society. Which bathroom would they use at a restaurant "male" or "female"?  If you were addressing a letter to them would you put Sir or Madam or Mr or Mrs? 

I support this family in their decisions and I believe that as long as Storm is a healthy and happy baby and is loved by the family it shouldn't make a difference. But, there is going to come a day when Storm has to decided whether to be a "Master" or a "Miss", because despite their best efforts, the world is just not ready or prepared for gender neutral babies. Not only in our language, but in the entirety of Western society. 

Click this link for the full article about Storm!

#5. What's in a name?

There are very few instances of language use that I dislike. Even double negatives tend not to irritate me. Usually I hear something new and interesting and I try to understand it and try to work out why people use that specific feature. Language is personal and everyone uses language slightly differently. Some people swear, some people don't, some people drop their initial 'h', some people don't. I'll admit I don't like attitudes towards language "the youth are ruining the English language" blah blah blah. Erm, no we're not ruining it, we're changing it. People would never say the first land animal ruined fish by sprouting legs and trying something new. Language, just like the human race, is evolving. But there is one thing that can annoy me sometimes and that is the way people say my name.

As we already know, accents and dialects vary quite significantly, even across a land mass as small as the United Kingdom. And if we accept accents and dialects are personal to each and every person and everyone has the right to their own use of language, should we say their name the way they do?

For example. For three years at university I lived with a girl from Leeds called Sophie. Only she didn't say Sophie as I would, she said something like, "Surf-e". Now because Sophie said her name in this way, we called her Surf for three years, in fact we still do. But if she introduced herself as "Surf-e", who are we to correct her and actually pronounce her name "Sophie"?

If Sophie introduced herself with this pronunciation, it is her name and she knows it as "Surf-e", so shouldn't we stick to this?

I notice this when I'm in Manchester and I introduce myself as Rosie and people call me "Rowse-e". Sometimes, if I'm in a bad mood, I want to say "I'm sorry, that's not how you say my name", but I fear this would make my a hypocrite.

I love accents and language and everything language can do and has done and yet when people pronounce my name "Rowse-e", a little part of me wants to punch them in the face. Only a little part. A part of me the size of my little toe.

This goes back to the conversation I had with Humphrey at the party in Eastbourne. He "corrected" my pronunciation of the word "dancing", but would he have corrected me if my name were Tanya and I said Tanya rather than his pronunciation "Tarnya". Something tells me he wouldn't correct me then because it is my name, but nevertheless he would still call me "Tarnya" because that is how he knows to pronounce it.

I guess it's nothing really, a tiny insignificant point that will never change the world. But next time someone introduced themselves to you, see if you pronounce their name in the way they do, I would bet that if they have a different accent to you, you will pronounce it differently to them. Even though it's their name and not yours to change.

#4. Can you repeat that?

Here are a few funny little examples of our ears failing at language.

1. My beautiful little sister, I say beautiful because she's not the smart one, was singing Michael Jackson a few years ago when I noticed she was making a wee bit of a mistake. Instead of singing "don't stop till you get enough", she was singing "don't stop till you get it up".

Now, in her defence, her understanding of the lyrics is plausible, what with lyrics such as "rude boy boy are you big enough" from Rihanna being allowed, I'm sure "don't stop till you get it up" would be played before the watershed. But, she did nevertheless turn an innocent enough line into a rather saucy inuendo.

2. My Grandpa gives us the next two annecdotes. In his seventies, he is losing his hearing somewhat and this has resulted in two brilliant dinner table stories. Firstly, when talking about a film featuring Sandra Bullock, he turned to me and said "Who on earth is Sandy Bollocks?". True story. Secondly, my Grandparents recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversay, three cheers for the happy couple. On the day of the anniversary my Grandpa's sister and brother-in-law phone to wish them well and my Grandpa's brother-in-law added "now you've got your diamond to look forward to". A while after this conversation my Grandma asked what was wrong with my upset Grandpa and he explained that it was rude of Jim to tell them that all they had to look forward to now was dying. Another true story.

Sometimes language is brilliant and other times, mishearing language is even better.

#3 Dan Saf

This weekend a few friends and I visited Eastbourne for a 21st birthday party. The weekend was wonderful, it included Brighton Pier, cupcakes and tattoo parlours. It also included A LOT of southerners. As a supporter of accents and dialects I was in my element listening to people talk in their wierd and wonderful ways. However, as a Midlandser I stuck out like a sore thumb.

There was one particular incident with a southern gentleman, we'll call him Humphrey.

At a party on Friday evening Humphrey asked me to dance, or should I say "darnce". He has the long /a/ sound as I later found out, he is from London.  I took Humphrey's offer and we danced, or rather he taught me the routine to Alexandra Burke's "Bad Boys" and I mimicked his body popping. It was fun, no denying that, but then I got tired and decided to sit down. Humphrey found me later on and asked me why I wasn't dancing anymore. I replied, "I'll dance in a minute, I'm just having a drink."

Humphrey then repeated "dance". So did I. Then he said, "It's not dancing it's darncing."

Now, I will interject here and confirm that I have a BA English Language and am currently studying for my MA English Language, therefore, Humphrey was on thin ice.

"There's no correct way of pronouncing dancing, we all say it differently," I said.

"But you should say darncing," he said.

"Says who?" I asked.

He went quiet and then smiled while raising his eyebrows as if to say "oh sweetie, your silly little Midlands brain can't comprehend that us Southerners are so much more intelligent than you could ever be."

"I guess there's no incorrect way of saying it," he said.

This incident was quite painless.  He agreed with me, albeit whilst patronising me, but nevertheless he didn't push the subject further.  However, a similar incident occured a few months ago with a girl from Milton Keynes.  Not only did she think I was stupid because of my accent but also because she was a newly qualified doctor and English Language is a Mickey Mouse subject, suited only for those girls who aren't intelligent enough to study Science and aren't creative enough to study Literature, Art or Philosophy. (In her opinion). I won't go into details but basically she laughed at me and called me stupid because I said "bath" not "barth".

Now, whilst I understand some accents may sound more intelligent than others and some accents come with negative connotations (Liverpool Scouse for example, which I happen to love), no one accent is more correct or incorrect than another.

You wouldn't say someone should tie their laces in the way the Southerners do, or part their hair in the centre because then you will look less Scottish. So, we shouldn't tell people how to pronounce words. Our accents and dialects make us as individual as our hair colour and our finger prints and because of this we should celebrate them and enjoy the fact that we are all slightly different.

#2. Foreign vs Normal

I won't mention who and I won't mention where but someone, somewhere at some time made the following distinction. Normal and foreign.

What was meant by this was the difference between those people who speak English and those who do not.  However, this person did not execute this with the most politically correct terminology.

Now I don't believe there is anything wrong with the word "foreign", when someone is not from Great Britain, there is nothing wrong with saying foreign.....within the right context. However, we should not presume that because someone is not speaking English they are foreign and on the same note, just because a person does not speak English, we should not separate them from "normal" as doing so would suggest that they are in fact "abnormal".

The person who made the distinction did not hesitate in doing so. It was a quick, un-thought-out utterance and probably on reflection they would change their terminology. However, if there is some way in which we can see into someone's thoughts and mind by the language they use, I think we just found a mild racist.  It has been said that we speak the truth when we are drunk or tired, what if we're  not monitoring what we are saying, is that the truth? If so, this person made a bit of a blip.

On the other hand, language uses us. If a man wants to create a friendly common ground with another man he may call him "mate" or "pal" or (insert masculine friendly term here).  However, what can he call a woman in the same situation, "honey" or "love"? Possibly not.  A woman may and undoubtedly has on occasion heard such an expression being aimed her way and taken offence and found it patronising and belittling. The man was not meaning to patronise, he was trying to put her at ease and create a friendly atmosphere, but in doing so, language has used him and he has had no easy alternative to "mate" or "pal".

Was the Foreignversusnormalgate a case of language using the speaker? It is possible. The utterance began with "foreign" and then the speaker had to counter this with mentioning those that are not foreign but was unable to.  It would have been easier to say "those that speak English and those that do not" but that was not mentioned.

I seem to think that while this could be a case of language using the speaker, whereby they had to quickly counter "foreign" with something and could not find in their lexicon the relative word, in fact, the use of language displayed the mind of the speaker - There are those that speak English and there are those that don't and those that do are "normal".

It is possible that I am thinking far too much into it and in fact nothing whatsoever was meant by what was said. I just found it quite interesting.

#1. Let There Be Light

Today I came across an example of the English language that not only creates syntactic confusion but also sheds light on the Lord Almighty.

First, we need to think of the meaning of a few sentences.

i) Let us go

So, who we are talking to?  Obviously someone is holding someone else, maybe one person, maybe many people and the phrase "let us go" is used as a device to ask for permission to be set free. This may be a teenager asking a parent if they can attend a house party, it may be a kidnapping and the hostage is pleading for freedom. However, we understand that there is a recipient to this phrase, someone has the power to let someone else go.

ii) Let the fun begin

This could be a request for music to be played, or spoken at the start of a gameshow but we still have a recipient. Someone somewhere has the power to let the fun begin.  The flick of a switch or a presenter running on stage has the power to begin the fun.

Now to the point.

iii) 'And God said "Let there be light," and there was light.' Genesis 1:3

Who is God talking to?
We have understood examples i) and ii) as being requests for permission or requests for the entity that has the power to do the thing being requested. Surely, God is not asking himself for permission to create light. Or is he?

We can presume that God was alone, it goes without saying, so then why did he ask himself permission?

To express this idea I shall reword the above sentences.

i) I request permission to be free
ii) I request that you begin the fun by (insert action here)
iii) I request that there be light

So, who is God requesting the light from? We would presume himself but then again why would he use such a phrase? There are no occassion where we use this syntactic construction to request actions from ourselves.

I have come to the conclusion that either, the phrase "Let there be light" is no longer to be interpreted as a request or a wish from one entity to another and here it means something along the lines of "I wish for light", or, quite simply, God has a wife.