[Seth Says] Amateur Nouns In Your Area

I was going to put something in the subject line about this newsletter being safe for work despite the title, but is it really safe to read anything at work these days? Hell, is it even safe to work at all? OSHA says no. (That'd be a good motto for them.)(Also, the OSHA that says no is specifically the Office of Seth Hates Activity.)(Why would I even have an office if I hate work? SHA, right.)

Anyway, I once saw a definition of a pronoun as "a noun that has lost its amateur status". You may think this is a dumb joke, but at least it shows a general understanding that a pronoun is a part of speech, which still places it above the various reactionaries who have boldly stated their opposition to pronouns in general. Will they come for adverbs next? ("These people aren't very sharp," Seth said bluntly.)
 

A noun, as we know from Schoolhouse Rock, is a person, place, or thing. And a pronoun, of course, is a noun that has gotten so good at nouning that it fills in for other nouns professionally. And certainly for someone like John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, Esq., he's glad he didn't have to have his name repeated thrice more in this sentence. Great job, he/his!

Of course, people have opinions about the professional nouns they choose to represent them, just as people have opinions about the other professionals who represent them. Arguably, my job isn't entirely dissimilar from that of a pronoun -- helping out a person who doesn't want to repeat themselves but wants to get their ideas across in a more approachable way. (Although as always, anything is arguable, and this metaphor is more of a stretch than a taffy factory.)

But it is odd to me that so much opposition seems to have arisen to pronoun particularity. Sure, one could just use "they" for everyone, which saves time and effort on the part of the speaker. But the people railing against pronoun particularity tend to be very particular about their own pronouns. (ask any one of those guys, and she won't even like this parenthetical aside.) So of course, the actual opposition isn't to parts of speech, but to ideas, and specifically the idea of other people being able to determine their own identity.

Still, as far as identity goes, pronouns offer very few options when compared with the wide and wild natural variety of
 

And it remained strange to me that the media focuses on a lot of trumped-up opposition to pronouns, but much less on people changing their names. (Granted, my perspective is obviously a biased and not fully informed one, as a cisgender introvert who never leaves my desk. But from what I see on the Internets, there's a lot more hay made about pronouns. Hay/him.)

And I wonder why. At first I thought, "Well, it's probably because lots of people change their name, and they don't want to mess with that." But - spoiler alert - even more people have pronouns than change their name. It's possible it's just a question of generalizing, and that it's easier to whip up hatred for pronouns in general than to say, "This is Paula Ling, who wants to be named Paul, and MUST BE STOPPED." ("This example seems contrived," said Seth appallingly.) But it's not like unnecessary individualized harassment has been a barrier in the past.

Then I saw an article earlier this week that a Florida school district sent a memo barring their transgender employees or contractors from using their updated pronouns or personal titles, which basically confirmed that yes, the cruelty is the point and they just want to make transgender people have as shitty a time as possible, but can't legally prevent people from changing their name (yet; I'm sure the DeSantis DeGenital Inspection Squad is in a proposed bill for 2024), so pronouns are where the battle is being waged.

So yeah, no interesting mystery here, just more cruelty. Sorry.
 

Names are cool though! I think we often express a lot about our self-image in the names we choose. And I know some of you are thinking, "I kept the same name I was born with, so I never really chose my name." Well, I happen to know for a fact that you went onto the Internet, because that's where this newsletter lives. Which means you probably had to choose your online name numerous times, choosing your email address, your name on Facebook, your name on any forums you might visit, etc.  And we can learn something about who you are based on whether you've decided to post online as RainbowCats77 or BloodNinja.

But it's true that while everyone chooses names online, not everyone changes their name in their offline life. Which means that people who *do* go through the trouble of changing it -- and I am reliably informed that it is some trouble -- probably feel it's important enough to be worth the effort. (By comparison, yesterday I ate popcorn I wasn't excited about instead of peanuts because to get the peanuts I would have had to get up and go into the kitchen.)

In short, name changes are a big deal. That's the topic of my latest column:
 

Admittedly, the column also talks about corporate name changes, even though that's not my area of expertise. I'm an introvert; I rarely have company.
 

Thanks for reading as always! I hope that you folks
  Found at least several parts of it nifty.
Back in two weeks with new column, more silly jokes,
  And probably fewer Tom Swifties.


"I'm glad I put a fun little quatrain at the end of the newsletter," Seth said adversely.


The L-Y-'in King,
Seth




P.S.  of course, the real L-Y-in' King will forever be Tom Lehrer.