Althouse: "If I ever referred to my mother as 'she,' my grandfather would ask, 'who's she?' as it was considered disrespectful."

February 6, 2015

"If I ever referred to my mother as 'she,' my grandfather would ask, 'who's she?' as it was considered disrespectful."

"Well, I carried on this tradition. One day, in frustration, my son yelled, 'I don't see what you have against pronouns!' Just made me giggle."

Said a commenter in a Facebook thread about one man's Wikipedia crusade over a fine point of English usage ("Man's Wikipedia Edits Mostly Consist Of Deleting 'Comprised Of'").

Would you carry on the grandfather's tradition? If you did, and at some point your son yelled in frustration "I don't see what you have against pronouns!," would you giggle... or stand tough in your husbandly requirement of respect for his wife? If you chose to maintain seriousness, how might you explore your child's professed inability to see why you found it disrespectful?

I think a very interesting conversation with the child could proceed from inquiring into whether he really can't understand the objection, and I'd be willing at some point to analyze why the yelled remark is a joke and to extract a useful joke-construction rule: Act like the topic under discussion is more general than we know it is.

59 comments:

Ignorance is Bliss said...: Act like the topic under discussion is more general than we know it is

I don't see what you have against specificity!; 2/6/15, 9:25 AM
B said...: Speaking of gendered pronouns, Chris Paul is in trouble for referencing a female referee as "her."

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/12287430/chris-paul-los-angeles-clippers-frustrated-techs-female-rookie-ref-not-her; 2/6/15, 9:28 AM
MadisonMan said...: The parts comprise the whole. That's all you need to remember.

1000 pieces comprise the puzzle. That is correct. The puzzle is comprised of 1000 pieces is horrible english.; 2/6/15, 9:33 AM
Paddy O said...: English is all preference.; 2/6/15, 9:36 AM
traditionalguy said...: But can the use of the pronoun "her" be a politically incorrect accusation meaning a person was not qualified? While the same thing said about a "him" would never be seen that way?

The feminists in gear today seeking to hang em high over player Chris Paul's comments about a female NBA Referee using a quick whistle callin Technical Fouls over other innocent words.

Absolute power of immunity from common sense in gender rules seems to have been attained. And the bullying women seem to be absolutely corrupt.; 2/6/15, 9:36 AM
chickelit said...: MadisonMan said...The parts comprise the whole. That's all you need to remember.

I'm pretty sure you mean compose instead of comprise there. See here for the difference.; 2/6/15, 9:43 AM
chickelit said...: @MadMan:

Logically, parts can't include a larger whole so only the whole may comprise the parts.; 2/6/15, 9:46 AM
Shanna said...: Said a commenter in a Facebook thread about one man's Wikipedia crusade over a fine point of English usage ("Man's Wikipedia Edits Mostly Consist Of Deleting 'Comprised Of'").

That's funny. I would be happy if his next campaign were to remove the word 'utilize' but that may be more of a business thing.; 2/6/15, 9:48 AM
chickelit said...: "[I]s comprised of" is just as wrong as writing "is included of." You really mean "is composed of."; 2/6/15, 9:48 AM
MadisonMan said...: No wonder I got that B in Journalism!

chickelit, you're right. The one thing I remember that I did get right is that saying 'comprised of' is wrong.

Thanks.; 2/6/15, 9:48 AM
tim maguire said...: I would be too charmed by the cheeky cleverness of the boy to not laugh. But then, I don't see what the problem is. Perhaps the NBA can explain it to me.

In Brooklyn, I had hippie-dippy neighbors whose small children referred to them by their first names. That I understood.

In Toronto, I currently have fairly traditional conformist neighbors whose small children call them by their first names.

That I don't understand.; 2/6/15, 9:51 AM
chickelit said...: You're welcome, MadisonMan. BTW, I found my first ever comment on Althouse from back in '06 and it was you who was gracious enough to answer me -- a newbie. So THANK YOU!; 2/6/15, 9:54 AM
Steven Wilson said...: I don't fight over it, but I'm constantly bemused to find that close and proximity have become virtually manacled together. I am always surprised to see proximity as a stand alone in recent times. I've even
noticed by people who usually pointing fingers at usage and errors, cliches, and redundancy.; 2/6/15, 9:54 AM
mccullough said...: People pay money to watch Chris Paul, not the ref. Rookie ref needs to learn that. It was a bullshit call. If she doesn't wise up. then she will be gone.; 2/6/15, 9:55 AM
Beldar said...: Close, Madison Man, but traditionally, before this word's meaning was blurred by rampant misuse:

The whole comprises its parts, actually. The United States comprises Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, etc. The United States is composed of Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, etc. But the United States is not "comprised of" those states.

Not one person in five, maybe not one in twenty, uses this correctly. Most people think it's a just synonym for "composed." But there's no need for another need that means "composed," and there's occasionally a good use for a word that means "comprised."

Don't get me started on uninterested and disinterested.; 2/6/15, 9:56 AM
Beldar said...: Once again I am reminded, too late, that I ought read all the other comments before leaving mine. Cheers, chickelit.; 2/6/15, 9:59 AM
rhhardin said...: I always take "comprised of" as indicating that the writer doesn't know Latin.; 2/6/15, 10:00 AM
jimbino said...: Worse than calling her "she" would be calling her "they." The "singular" they/their/them needs to be edited out of Wikipedia as well.

When Windows first came out, I was so offended by the bad grammar (e.g., "as soon as the program executes...") in screen messages that I used grep to modify all the message files in the executable.

Eternal vigilance is the price of maintaining our language. If we allow stupidities like "comprised of" to proliferate, the descriptivists over at language log, who determine proper usage by googling and N-gram, will have reduced our language to gibberish.

Now we need someone to rid our language of "in terms of" where "with regard to" is more appropriate and of "risk/chance/probability for" where "risk/chance/probability of" is intended.; 2/6/15, 10:03 AM
chillblaine said...: I get the guy's compulsion to scrub Wikipedia. I don't understand the tangential comment about the pronoun. Does it apply to all situations? Like, my piano teacher is a pain because SHE makes me practice scales? If she is in the same room, yes, it is disrespectful.

Gendered pronouns are on their way out anyway. Well done, Sister Suffragette!; 2/6/15, 10:04 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: "...to extract a useful joke-construction rule: Act like the topic under discussion is more general than we know it is."

The Universe is a joke-starter kit.

I am Laslo.; 2/6/15, 10:06 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Would you ... to obliterate that pet peeve ....?

Sure, you betcha! Here are three which infest the speech of television reporters.

"that is when"

"ended up"

"gonna"; 2/6/15, 10:08 AM
Mrs Whatsit said...: In my family, if you disrespectfully called a female relative "she" instead of using her name or title, you'd get this reprimand: "Who's she? The cat's mother?" I thought the remark was just my family's eccentricity, but it turns out to be a traditional reproof.

http://languagehat.com/the-cats-mother/; 2/6/15, 10:15 AM
Bob Ellison said...: I avoid both "comprise" and "compose". "Is composed of" should really be "is composed by". It's all passive-voice, anyway. And the two words are too similar to avoid making mistakes.

Your joke-construction rule "act like the topic under discussion is more general than we know it is") the operating principle behind the "of course" when Ron Burgunday says, "Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means ‘a whale’s vagina.’” But the "of course" is just a modifier, a kicker to push the main joke.

In the case of this parent, the child yelled the joke, unwittingly. It was funny to the parent because he switched the subject so quickly. That's more of a rule that says: something can be funny just because it comes suddenly and unexpectedly. A pie in the face, or a fart, basically.; 2/6/15, 10:16 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: What have we learned when we hear (e.g.) "There could be as many as 215 or more ...."?; 2/6/15, 10:17 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Apropos pet peves: Closed caption options on Amazon.com and Netflix streaming video usually include

Spanish
French
English - for deaf and hearing impaired

We watch the shows while on exercise machines. Noise of the machines makes hearing difficult. We are neither deaf nor hearing impaired. Is it OK if we use the English captions? Will this be offensive to any hearing impaired persons?; 2/6/15, 10:38 AM
Horseball said...: The man is referring to his grandfather's reprimands when referring to his own mother (presumably the daughter of the grandfather). Thus, it is not a point of husbandly duty but fatherly.; 2/6/15, 10:40 AM
mccullough said...: For the people who are pissed that English has no case endings for adjectives.; 2/6/15, 10:43 AM
mccullough said...: And whatever happened to the royal "we."

You only see it occasionally in trial court opinions in place of "the Court."; 2/6/15, 10:47 AM
MadisonMan said...: @Hammond, that just makes me think that the person making the menu didn't know French or Spanish and therefore didn't know how to write for deaf and hearing impaired in those languages.; 2/6/15, 10:49 AM
Rocketeer said...: While we're on grammar pet peeves: ORIENTATE. Gah!; 2/6/15, 10:56 AM
Jaq said...: I guess if Ogg didn't say it to Grog, it isn't a word.; 2/6/15, 11:01 AM
Jaq said...: Imagine what a spare language we would have, for example, if some noob took Shakespeare and scrubbed it of words that "weren't English."

But Wikipedia? You can't even find the gel point of biodiesel there because it is too political.; 2/6/15, 11:08 AM
Jaq said...: How's about we scrub the internet of Schadenfreude when the page is primarily in English? What are we? French? Do we purposely invent words to drive words in common usage out of our language because we don't like them?

I don't think "comprised of" is in my word rotation, but sheesh! I certainly know what it means.

I guess people seize on little shibboleths to mark members of out groups, even better! The word does double duty!; 2/6/15, 11:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The parts comprise the whole. That's all you need to remember. 1000 pieces comprise the puzzle. That is correct. The puzzle is comprised of 1000 pieces is horrible english."

If you were right that the parts comprise the whole than the whole is comprised of the parts would be correct!

The puzzle comprises the pieces.

My advice: Don't use comprise. People are so used to hearing it wrong that they won't get what you're saying if you do it right.; 2/6/15, 11:12 AM
Revenant said...: My parents had the same objection to "he" and "she". I didn't understand, then, what was disrespectful about it... and I still don't. Just one of those weird traditional things, I guess.; 2/6/15, 11:16 AM
Revenant said...: We are neither deaf nor hearing impaired. Is it OK if we use the English captions

Subtitles for the deaf usually include parenthetical descriptions of sound effects. "English" and "English for the deaf" are definitely two different kinds of subtitles.; 2/6/15, 11:18 AM
Harsh Pencil said...: Your household sounds like the one I grew up in. My mother would always quote her mother's reprimand when we would refer to her as she: "She's the cat's mother." (Meaning "she" could refer to anyone. Proper respect is to something like "my Mom" instead of she.)

But we had to figure out what "She's the cat's mother" meant. She would just say that and move on.; 2/6/15, 11:19 AM
FullMoon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 11:23 AM
MadisonMan said...: My advice: Don't use comprise

...unless you use it correctly. And be 100% sure :); 2/6/15, 11:24 AM
Jaq said...: My advice: Don't use comprise. People are so used to hearing it wrong that they won't get what you're saying if you do it right.

Thanks God English has words to spare, no thanks to the noobs.; 2/6/15, 11:24 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Surely between 'compose' and 'comprise' we can find a composmise.

I am Laslo.; 2/6/15, 11:30 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The man is referring to his grandfather's reprimands when referring to his own mother (presumably the daughter of the grandfather). Thus, it is not a point of husbandly duty but fatherly."

I see that point, but how did the man apply that tradition to his own son? He was talking about the son's mother, his wife, and therefore he was being husbandly, commanding respect for his own wife.; 2/6/15, 11:36 AM
Bob Ellison said...: You heard what Beethoven's up to lately? Decomposing.

Mexico, Venezuela, and a bunch of mostly Arab states may one day have to stop comprising and instead decompose OPEC.; 2/6/15, 11:49 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: Subtitles for the deaf usually include parenthetical descriptions of sound effects. "English" and "English for the deaf" are definitely two different kinds of subtitles.

Thanks, Revenant. I didn't know that.; 2/6/15, 11:54 AM
MadisonMan said...: So I'm working on updating a quiz for a new software package, and I note I'd used 'comprise' incorrectly!

Althouse comment section adding value! :); 2/6/15, 12:28 PM
Crunchy Frog said...: I once answered that question with, "That bitch you knocked up." My punishment was being sprayed with the mouthful of beer that my dad had just taken.; 2/6/15, 1:09 PM
Meade said...: "My advice: Don't use comprise. "

Who don't use comprise? The cat's mother?; 2/6/15, 1:23 PM
jimbino said...: There are two words you use at your peril: "decimate" and "forte."

Nobody gets that "decimate" does not mean "devastate" and if you don't pronounce "forte" as "forté" everyone will correct you.

Also, nobody knows what "peruse" or "enormity" means and nobody on National Proletarian Radio can pronounce "grimace."

The Brits apparently can't help saying the stupid, "Having said that, the weather today..."; 2/6/15, 1:43 PM
jimbino said...: Among common modern abuses of the English language are statements of the form:

The kitchen is 20 ft x 20 ft.

The longest board used was 24 ft.

NO. The kitchen measures 20 ft. x 20 ft.

The longest board used had a length of 24 ft.

You can't believe anything that a realtor ("reelator") says, in any case.; 2/6/15, 2:04 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Beldar,

"But there's no need for another need that means 'composed,' "

Yeah, but that's not how language works -- least of all Enlish, which has a HUGE lexicon compared to most others.

And either the FB commenter's grandfather was nuts, or FB commenter guy just isn't explaining it well. English pretty much *requires* you shift to pronouns once you've clearly identified the referents. Consider:

"I went over to Bob's house, and asked Bob if he wanted to hang out for a while. Bob said, 'Sure, why don't get go get a beer? I'll drive.' 'Fine,' I replied, so Bob said goodbye to Bob's wife, and Bob and I got into Bob's car and headed for The Beach Tavern...."; 2/6/15, 2:07 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Steven,

"I am always surprised to see proximity as a stand alone in recent times. "

That's a normal feature of English: a word that implies a scale (e.g. 'quality') when used alone signifies the high end of the scale ('quality merchandise' == 'HIGH quality merchandise'; 'proximity' == 'CLOSE proximity'.)

Hammond,

I used to marvel at this radio commercial for some kind of work-at-home scheme, the climax of which was "You could earn up to a thousand dollars a week, or more.... A. Lot. More."; 2/6/15, 2:25 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Nice to see the Académie Anglais out in full force today.; 2/6/15, 2:26 PM
Mrs Whatsit said...: Revenant, Kirk Parker and others who wondered why it's rude to use pronouns in speaking of a female relative, the problem isn't using them in the ordinary sense -- "My mother won't let me go to the dance because she thinks I'm too young." The rudeness is using a pronoun for the first reference, as if you're speaking of some sort of generalized female entity rather than a person: "SHE won't let me go to the dance [with meaningful glance toward kitchen where "SHE" is working] because she thinks I'm too young."

I can't explain exactly why this is disrespectful, but I knew someone who actually did refer to his wife as "she" and almost never used her name -- and it did come across as strange and rude. Maybe because it's dehumanizing, or maybe it was the resentful tone in which he tended to utter the word "she," or maybe it was just that I'd been strictly taught never to do that and was taken aback when he did. (However, they aren't married anymore.)

I'm guessing that speaking this way about women must have been more common once than it is now, as people used to be routinely taught not to do it as part of the ordinary training of childhood etiquette -- but now can't understand why such a rule is necessary.; 2/6/15, 2:59 PM
jimbino said...: My good friend, a minister, introducing his wife, said:

I'd like you to meet my first wife, Carol."; 2/6/15, 3:08 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Mrs. Whatsit,

Ah, thanks, that makes a lot more sense. So I go with my "he's not explaining it very well" option, then.; 2/6/15, 3:11 PM
jimbino said...: It would be correct to say that the United States comprise(s) a vast system of national parks and forests virtually off-limits to Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans.; 2/6/15, 3:37 PM
Sydney said...: Like Mrs Whatsit, I knew someone who always referred to his wife as "she" and though I never was taught that this was rude and inappropriate, it struck me as rude and inappropriate whenever I had a conversation with him. Never did he use her name. It was very odd. And very irritating.; 2/6/15, 7:18 PM
Fritz said...: She who must be obeyed.; 2/6/15, 9:59 PM
mikee said...: I hate "all of" when reading.

As to "she," Rumpole of the Bailey referred to his wife as "She Who Must Be Obeyed." However, he was the only one allowed to so reference Mrs. Rumpole, and woe betide anyone else who spoke that phrase. He was, after all, married to her.; 2/7/15, 11:11 AM