Lib Dem-run Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey has decided ‘he’ and ‘she’ are too much for some people and is telling staff to use ‘they’ and ‘them’ instead. The Telegraph has more:
The authority has a list of recommendations in the guide to make people feel “welcome, seen, heard and respected, regardless of their backgrounds”.
It claims that using language such as “them” or “they”, rather than “he” or “she”, plays a powerful role in diminishing stereotypes and making employees feel comfortable.
The document, which was last updated in June last year, was criticised as “authoritarianism” at the time after it claimed that terms like “manpower”, “blacklist” and “ladies” were offensive.
There is no explanation given in the updated guide for why terms are deemed “non-inclusive”, but the list features several gender-related phrases.
The guide discourages the use of “husband or wife”, instead encouraging “spouse or partner”. It also suggests using “chair or chairperson” instead of “chairman/chairwoman” and “Too many cooks in the kitchen” instead of “Too many chiefs”.
Elsewhere in the guide, Spelthorne encourages people to say “alcohol-use disorder” instead of “alcoholic”, “gay, lesbian or LGBTQ+” instead of “homosexual” and “developing countries” in place of “third world”.
There is also guidance against words such as “ninja”, “rockstar” and “bossy”, suggesting “multi-tasker”, “fast learner, talented” and “driven” respectively as alternatives. …
Within the advice sheet, which encourages readers to “relax and be yourself”, is advice that asks those communicating with “ethnic groups where English is their second language” to “speak at a slower rate” and use “short sentences”. …
The updated guide continues to advise against terms relating to physical disabilities, such as “blind spot”, “tone-deaf” and “lame”. It recommended that these be replaced with “problem area”, “doesn’t listen at all times” and “not enjoyable”, respectively.
It also warns against the phrase “slaving away”, encouraging “working hard” in its stead.
Worth reading in full.
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If I’m talking to you. I’ll use “you” I will not use a plural to describe a singular thank you very much
Its just the woke lefty way of asserting mind control. They think imposing their words, they get cultural and ultimately, political control. Its childish, and they should be treated like children. Not humoured like a coward, but corrected …and ignored when they have a tantrum.
They is subject third person plural, them is object third person plural.
The correct neuter singular third person pronoun is “it”. The correct neuter first person pronoun is “one”.
How about thee, thou, thy, thine? Or “shitbag?
libdem, the party of the pea doughs and weirdo’s.
I recall the previous round of political correctness being roundly mock for its po-faced instructions about ‘personholes’ and ‘Personchester’.
So I guess we should start again by talking about ‘Theyffield’ in the Midlands and the ‘Theyalayas’ in Nepal?
Or Themalayas.
Also: femhole covers.
At the weekend I saw a gender neutral type, female I think, taking her dog for a walk. I got into trouble for misgendering her dog. I said “she” when it was obviously “he”. The irony of her dog being an immutable biological sex did amuse me. No social construct for you Fido.
“It also warns against the phrase “slaving away”, encouraging “working hard” in its stead” Using “working hard” may cause trauma to their own supporters! So it should be banned.
Don’t be silly.they won’t know what it means!
“ethnic groups where English is their second language” to “speak at a slower rate” and use “short sentences”
OK
Learn. English. Or. Leave
Using the third person singular verb form (they is, they has) is a grammatically grating way to protest. E.g. “Where’s Fatima?” “They is in the prayer room” etc.
Slightly OT: living outside the UK for 30-odd years makes it easier to observe changes in the language and pronunciation. When I left in 1993, only trendy lefties and ‘Neighbours’ fans used the ghastly unspeak, with every sentence ending in a question mark. It proceeded to infect nearly everybody apart from Rees-Mogg types but now thankfully appears to be declining somewhat.
There is also an odd English belief that changing the name of something or using a euphemism will solve a problem, until the new phrase in turn causes hurty feelings.
The changes in the words for – ahem- sanitary facilities and schools for children of below-average ability are prime examples.
Doesn’t seem to affect other languages, for instance while ‘handicapped’ is gone from English usage, “Behindert” remains in current German and “handicap” in French.
Agreed. How do you control the rest of the sentence when using “they” as singular. Does they want an ice cream? Do they want an ice cream?
Personally I won’t be participating, I’m not indulging woke nonsense.
I wonder how you single out a person in a mixed group. It could blow back on them, when asked “who did it”, just say they and refuse to break their rules.
as in Agatha Christie’s ‘murder on the orient express’. They all did it..
““They is in the prayer room”
Correction: “They am in prayer room – innit?”
I did agree with the speaking slowly and using shorter sentences when dealing with those for whom English is a second language… but – why are they here?
Has this Council asked the King to change the lyrics of our National Anthem yet? He couldn’t really object owing to the royal ‘We’. Would people comply anyway?
The royal ‘they’ has a certain ring to it. (As in ‘Let them eat cake’.)
I am most uncomfortable being described as an inanimate object (chair) or plural entity. Maybe I just won’t visit this mad authority area in case I have a breakdown.
I wouldn’t mind being a plural entity if it enabled me to multi-task. Sadly, not going to happen.
Here a pasted brief edited meaning: The word man or men is derived from Old English, the word for “man” (primarily meaning “person” or “human being,” of either sex) is mann (also spelled man, monn, or mon).
Mann rarely meant specifically “adult male” in Old English; wer was the usual word for that. Compounds like wīfmann (“woman”) keep the masculine gender of mann.
So given that lefties like to destroy the past it comes as no surprise that they want to destroy the language too.
I should have said, so the word “chairman” implicitly means, “chairperson”.
These people are retards. They deserve all they are going to get when the country comes apart. I hope they are put on trial and jailed for long prison terms when the Great Treason Trials are held following the Great Civil War.
These retards are trying to up their game, being scared of eating the woke dust kicked up by the Dems in the US.
I would bet any money that the people who voted for these idiots arent aware of this crap.
This shit again?
FFS.
🤡🌍
Twisting tongues, one might say it’s evil.
Since I’m mnemonically-challenged (and thereby ‘not abled’) would I be excused for making multiple unapproved utterances were I to work for these idiots?
How about the fully inclusive ‘You lot’?
Which lot is that?
Not the other lot.
It’s “That Lot”, East and West Surrey Councils for a start.
Or even (were they not present) ‘that lot’?
I think it could catch on.
And the bad news is that from April both East and West Surrey councils will be run by Ed The Clown’s Far Left Limpdumb morons.
The “long march through the institutions”as advocated by Rudi Dutschke in the 1960s. The working class failed to support the extreme left and its revolutionary program. So the extreme left decided to gain control of society by burrowing into its elite sectors and achieving radical change in government. Our civil bodies, academia and legal system are now fully indoctrinated.
I’m afraid it started a long time before that.
The control of language is part of marxo-fascist “coordination” – the attempt to merge the whole of society into the totalitarian utopia that the madleft thinks it can construct. As we know from the great leftwing tyrannies of the 20th century, the idea is to make make the things which our self-appointed moral guardians disapprove of unthinkable.
This is why we have to carry on using the words “Mr”, “Mrs”, “wife”, “husband”, “manpower”, “blacklist”, “ladies”, “blind spot”, “tone-deaf”, “lame”. And thousands of others. This is why we have to keep insisting that, yes, men can’t get pregnant.
Absolutely.
I deliberately use these “outdated” words and if anyone challenges me, I will ask them who authorized them to mandate what words I can and cannot use.
And I am a married man and I have a wife. Not a partner, a wife.
Me too.
Living in North Wales at which this garbage has not yet really arrived, I am disappointed not to have an opportunity to deliberately challenge anyone.
Well, I live in southern England, and still my communications from government departments arrive in both English and Welsh (just in case I got lost?)
Absolutely. Tell them to hoppit and go and try to oppress somebody else’s language.
You could tell them to go and procreate, but, given the confusion over pronouns, that might not be possible.
Were I ever to encounter King Chuck and feel it obligatory to speak, I might opt for ‘Sire’. Or even ask him ‘How art thou?’