A pronoun, one of the eight parts of speech in the English language, is a word that takes the place of a person, place, or thing (a noun) while a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. They make sentences a lot less tedious than they would be if a speaker or writer keeps repeating the noun.
Rather than
“Bob went to the store and Bob bought some veggies after which Bob went next door where Bob bought some other things that Bob did not find in the first store that Bob had been in”,
it is much easier and less repetitive to say,
“Bob went to the store and bought some veggies after which he went next door where he bought some other things that he did not find in the first store that he had been in”.
However, since a pronoun takes the place of a noun, we need to know the antecedent, the noun being replaced.
In the second sentence we have to know it is Bob doing the shopping so we know who he is because without knowing his name, “he” could be anyone.
In English with three Grammatical genders, male, female, and neuter, as our nouns name persons who are living beings and hence, by tradition, male and female, while objects that do not have gender, things and places, are neuter. Unlike other Romance languages who assign
male and female gender to things as well as living creatures, in English nouns are usually preceded by the neutral article THE.
If the noun is plural, the pronoun also is.
As English is a living language, unlike Latin that is considered a dead language because, although still used, its structure has not changed since the fall of the Roman Empire, English is a living language that borrows words from other languages, often applying the rule of grammar related to that word in the original language, so some traditional Grammar rules are actually irrelevant to English and are just rules by osmosis.
For example, the rule of not splitting an infinitive, “to run” as opposed “to swiftly run”, is based on the introduction of infinitives from Latin into the changing English language as it grew from Anglo/Saxon to Olde English, and ignores that in Latin infinitives are a single word so it cannot
be split.
Purists cringe when someone splits an infinitive but really cannot explain this other than just reciting the rule.
Basically, you don’t because you don’t.
People often assume English Grammar rules are what they have always been, but, in reality Grammar adapts with usage as the written and spoken language becomes more effective with adaptation.
Although “every teacher” refers to all the individual teachers, it has become easier and less befuddling to say “Every teacher should bring their books”, than the purist “Every teacher should bring HIS or HER books.”
The use of “their” in such singular application has been around for centuries but many people assume from what little of Grammar they learned in school because it wasn’t festive that they have a full understanding of the subtleties of language and this is wrong.
An example of this adaptation or morphing is the word “where” that implies location, so location references are not necessary. It is enough to ask, “where are you?” because “at” is implied in the word. However, it is becoming a common but annoying practice for me at this time to add
the unnecessary word “at” as in “Where are you at?” but as it is being added in broadcast media it clearly has become acceptable in common parlance to add the “at”.
And so, the living language adapts to live.
Although there is quite a bit of Latin in English, somewhere around 85-90+%, unlike other Latin influenced languages, we do not have male and female things which means that from its beginning modern English had already had its pronoun use modifications.
So it is annoying enough when people, presenting themselves as experts, actually show their ignorance of the ever developing nature of Grammar, but it gets beyond annoying when, in order to oppose the development of a living language they use their own ignorance to oppose natural change.
Jim Jordan thinks that preferred pronouns ban the proper use of pronouns as he learned in school to whatever degree of success, like wishing someone a Happy Holiday will kill Baby Jesus. What Jim Jordan is actually doing is trying to halt the natural growth of a living language
for a political agenda.
Ted Cruz claims his pronouns are “Kiss, My, Ass”.
Only one of the three is a pronoun
Marjory Taylor Green announced that hers are “Ban/Drag/Queen/Story-Time”, all nouns, as well as “Impeach/Biden”, “Fire/Fauci”, and others that are, like these, all nouns.
These and the others who object to preferred pronouns seem not to know what pronouns actually are which makes the foundation of their objections and demand that pronouns stay as they are used as of a few years ago seem uninformed and weak.
Worse, these are the same people who condemn teachers and public education while demanding more parental control of what is taught in the classroom, yet, they constantly expose themselves as the worst advocates for and examples of that for which they scream.
Conservatives, if they are going to oppose what they consider the betrayal of pronoun usage, need to learn what pronouns are.
They are the worst advocates for traditional pronoun usage as they cannot tell their pronouns from their nouns like a hole in the ground and a spot on their personal anatomy.
And, if they are examples of what will be taught in the classroom not according to what teachers know students should learn, but what they as parents want taught, the future looks rather sad.
.
.
.
.
.
.
