I was taken to task the other day. I stated that a sentence such as, “I talked to a committee member and they said ___ ,” was grammatically incorrect. As evidence of *my* mistake, I was offered the dictionary definition of “they” from Dictionary dot com.

I have– as all citizens should– several skeptical bones in my body and so I looked up the definition myself. And I have a few things to say.

1. The committee member in question is not an indefinite singular antecedent. He is a he or she is a she. Pick one.

2. Dictionary dot com is not the boss of me.

3. I am apparently not as lazy as Dictionary dot com’s average user because I have no problem at all spending an extra 0.001 second re-writing a sentence so as to make the subject, verb, and pronoun agree in number. To whit: Citizens of voting age, whether they are interested in politics or not, should take seriously the responsibilities of citizenship.

3. Since when is it Dictionary dot com’s job to teach civics? A MONKEY could have come up with a better example sentence. Any one of the millions of Anonymous Commenters on this blog could have done it. But no. According to Dictionary dot com you are so lazy you cannot make words agree AND you are so stupid you don’t know what your responsibilities are as a citizen so you just go vote you ignorant imbecile, you. And while we are at it, let’s vote dictionary dot com the best dictionary in the history of mankind.

Of course, it gets worse because Dictionary dot com anticipates my reaction:

 (Looky there. There should be a space between ” ” ” and “Such.” What liberal editing.)

4. Listen up, Dictionary dot com. If you want to appeal to the authority of Bacon Shakespeare, Swift, Shelley, Scott, and Dickens how about an example along with a citation so I can go look that s^&* up myself. Why should I take your word for it?

5. Read over that very slowly. Now let’s pick out some key words and phrases.

Long before the use of generic he was condemned as sexist, the pronouns they, their, and them were used in educated speech and in all but the most formal writing to refer to indefinite pronouns and to singular nouns of general personal reference, probably because such nouns are often not felt to be exclusively singular: “If anyone calls, tell them I’ll be back at six.” Everyone began looking for their books at once.”Such use is not a recent development, nor is it a mark of ignorance. Shakespeare, Swift, Shelley, Scott, and Dickens, as well as many other English and American writers, have used they and its forms to refer to singular antecedents. Already widespread in the language (though still rejected as ungrammatical by some), this use of they, their, and them is increasing in all but the most conservatively edited American English. This increased use is at least partly impelled by the desire to avoid the sexist implications of he as a pronoun of general reference. See also he¹.

Could there be a “usage note” that’s more loaded?

Your fuddy-duddy English teacher is correcting your grammar? How sexist, conservative and ignert are them? Why! Everybodi’es doin it– bin doin it fer years! If it feels good do them. [That did not come out right.]

Let me make one or two other points. Remember “ain’t ain’t in the dictionary?” Well, it is. It’s there because “ain’t’ is a word that is in use. That does not make “ain’t” a good and proper word to use even in informal speech. I will appeal to the authority of Strunk and White where convoluting singular & plural is rejected even in the fourth edition (2000).

I just checked two unabridged Webster’s, one from 1892, another from 1965. The 1965 edition instructs (as a secondary def) “he or she: he” and allows “with an indefinite singular antecedent <everyone…they>.”

That is contra what the usage note above says unless you consider 50 years ago to be a “long” time ago. News flash. It’s not.

The 1892 Webster’s secondary definition states: “It is used indefinitely, as our ancestors used man, and as the French used on; They say (on dit), that is, it is said by persons indefinitely.”

I rest my case. If you’d like to read some commentary on the Dictionary dot com liberal education crowd, may I suggest this? I mean Them.

UPDATE: via Theothermccain.

HEATHER MAC DONALD: Let’s look at these numbers, Howard. The most common statistic thrown out these days by President Obama, Vice President Biden, on down is that one in five women will be the victims of sexual assault during their college careers.

To paraphrase. I don’t want to hear one more g-d word about the horrors of a liberal arts education until you people of the alternative start getting it right.

You have already identified the subject as A WOMYN. ONE will be the victims.

Makes my rant about “they” seem sort of picky-u-ish, doesn’t it?

Jesus H. Christ. I try not to swear too much here on the blog but you folks are a trying lot.

And just for the record. Going to college is not a “career.”

You go to college to learn to read & rite.