What game is this?

On the starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk!

Counterpoint: he’s controversial because of what he says and does, not because of lies people tell about him.

I have a degree in linguistics. The most important thing it taught me is that there is a widely believed fiction, almost like a religion, underlying prescriptivist grammar. For the sake of social advancement, if you have both the means and the talent, it’s generally necessary to learn a list of arbitrary but extremely complicated prestige markers for your language, to earn the approval of the self-appointed priestly caste of grammarians, in order to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful. An overly complex shibboleth.

It’s a mechanism to oppress the lower classes while maintaining the pretense of pure meritocracy, by declaring arbitrarily that the dialect which is already spoken and written in the homes of the upper class children is proper, and all other dialects are improper, then implying that the “failure” of lower class children to acquire the prestige markers is an intellectual shortcoming, rather than the absence of privilege.

Can you buy books and hire tutors to learn these prestige markers? Of course. Is there general agreement among members of this cult about what their own rules are? Sure. If you choose not to use them, is your English “improper”? Absolutely not. It’s different but equal, as long as your meaning is clear. I would wager that more than 90% of people do not go even one day without saying or writing some example of “improper” English, which is nevertheless understood perfectly well by the recipient. Successful transmission of the message is the only true test of linguistic legitimacy. Everything else is performative.

By the way, while it doesn’t change much about this more fundamental basis for my opinion that “standard English” is an offensive fiction, neither British nor American English actually have the backing of a nation state. This is in contrast to, for example, French, which does. According to this article on language regulators, “The English language has never had a formal regulator anywhere, outside of private productions such as the Oxford English Dictionary.” Prompting my rhetorical question to you earlier: Who is the governing body? There is none.

I thought the same, friend.

It also doesn’t help that the third person feminine is ambiguous. There’s often no distinction between the accusative “her” and the possessive “her” (except when the pronoun appears in a different part of the sentence and becomes “hers” - fuck I hate English), so it could be interpreted as fitting either rule.

I don’t care if it’s not correct - I use “theirself” and “theirselves.” It jibes with “yourself,” “myself,” and “herself.”

“Himself” is a frustrating outlier, but I do know at least one person who says “hisself,” and that’s enough precedent for me.

For airborne contagions. Next question.

What is the governing body of your alleged “proper English”?

Greetings. Fisto is programmed for your pleasure. Please assume the position. Activating main rectenna.

Already doing that. No change in material conditions, still depressed. Next idea?

Well then it becomes a logistical question. How?

So your solution to depression about climate change is, “singlehandedly accomplish what all of the non-evil politicians have been trying and failing to do for decades, but do that while both powerless and depressed”?

I could not possibly have described the experience better. That’s exactly how my relationship with them has evolved. Poetic. And your comment naturally took on David Mitchell’s voice in my head.

I was like this when I was younger. Absolutely hated them. Then my taste receptor that made them disgusting just kind of switched off gradually over time. Apparently this can happen from middle age onward. Maybe wait a while and try again someday. They’re also better with salt.