Adventures on a gender-sensitive keyboard
Political correctness at work on the computer screen
My computer tries to improve my style by automatically underlining in blue what it believes to be clichés or redundant phrases. If I type in order to, for example, the blue wavy line appears unbidden under the three words. In so far as is another phrase that, schoolmarm-like, my computer underlines as if to correct me.Now as it happens that I love in so far as, in so far as, in the days when my writing was paid by the word, I used to use it as often as possible. It delighted me to think that, merely by having typed 12 characters (if you include the spaces), I had earned… well, whatever the going rate per word was.Of course, I was deluding myself slightly. I couldn’t just send in the phrase in so far as and demand to be paid for them: they had to be included, more or less meaningfully, in the middle of an article. All the same, I never wrote in so far as as insofar, which would have been perfectly permissible but not so lucrative. (The phrase more or less, incidentally, comes under my computer’s interdiction, or perhaps I should say anathema.)Sometimes I try to write paragraphs more or less in order to have as much blue underlining in it as I possibly can, in as much as it is an amusing game to play. For ever is a useful standby in this game. Be that as it may (another standby) I have not yet managed an entire paragraph with blue underlining. Just as real meaning sometimes creeps inadvertently into politicians’ speeches, so some words escape the blue pencil even in the best of my efforts.There is also the red pencil, for words that are misspelled or allegedly do not exist (often they do). It is interesting, then, that genderqueer, which I think is of very recent coinage, has now entered the vocabulary of my computer as a bona fide word. For those dinosaurs among you who do not know what it means, I will here provide its meaning, as per Wikipedia:“… denoting or relating to a person who does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders.”
You can also be trigender or pangender without having your preference underlined in red, though not quadridender, pentagender, or hexagender, not even agender, which of course is an insult to the agender community.No doubt it will be corrected in the next updates that so irritatingly interrupt work on my computer.Theodore Dalrymple is a retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. A highly popular journalist, he writes for The Times, The British Medical Journal,The Observer, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, The Salisbury Review and is contributing editor to the City Journal. This article was first published in the Salisbury Review and has been republished with permission.
My computer tries to improve my style by automatically underlining in blue what it believes to be clichés or redundant phrases. If I type in order to, for example, the blue wavy line appears unbidden under the three words. In so far as is another phrase that, schoolmarm-like, my computer underlines as if to correct me.
Now as it happens that I love in so far as, in so far as, in the days when my writing was paid by the word, I used to use it as often as possible. It delighted me to think that, merely by having typed 12 characters (if you include the spaces), I had earned… well, whatever the going rate per word was.
Of course, I was deluding myself slightly. I couldn’t just send in the phrase in so far as and demand to be paid for them: they had to be included, more or less meaningfully, in the middle of an article. All the same, I never wrote in so far as as insofar, which would have been perfectly permissible but not so lucrative. (The phrase more or less, incidentally, comes under my computer’s interdiction, or perhaps I should say anathema.)
Sometimes I try to write paragraphs more or less in order to have as much blue underlining in it as I possibly can, in as much as it is an amusing game to play. For ever is a useful standby in this game. Be that as it may (another standby) I have not yet managed an entire paragraph with blue underlining. Just as real meaning sometimes creeps inadvertently into politicians’ speeches, so some words escape the blue pencil even in the best of my efforts.
There is also the red pencil, for words that are misspelled or allegedly do not exist (often they do). It is interesting, then, that genderqueer, which I think is of very recent coinage, has now entered the vocabulary of my computer as a bona fide word. For those dinosaurs among you who do not know what it means, I will here provide its meaning, as per Wikipedia:
“… denoting or relating to a person who does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders.”
You can also be trigender or pangender without having your preference underlined in red, though not quadridender, pentagender, or hexagender, not even agender, which of course is an insult to the agender community.
No doubt it will be corrected in the next updates that so irritatingly interrupt work on my computer.
Theodore Dalrymple is a retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. A highly popular journalist, he writes for The Times, The British Medical Journal,The Observer, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, The Salisbury Review and is contributing editor to the City Journal. This article was first published in the Salisbury Review and has been republished with permission.
So: the day when America walks on water is about to dawn, and we must give the loud speaker to our own Sheila Liaugminas, a true patriot to her fingertips, who cut her baby teeth on politics and made up newspapers of her own from a young age.
She begs fellow Americans in a post today:
For the moment, let’s put aside the divisions and differences and for one, major, historic occasion that comes along only every so many years in a lifetime, come together as a nation of free citizens. And be grateful, together, and respect each other, for our shared dignity and humanity.
…
Let’s celebrate, somehow, together. And then take up our responsibilities as citizens to make ourselves, our families, our communities and our nation better.
Well, Sheila, I hear Trump still has lots of vacant posts at the White House – he’s even appointed a Kiwi, Chris Liddell, to one of them. For the life of me I can’t figure out why he hasn’t put you on the team, because what he needs above all there is sincerity, and no-one can beat you at that.
Did you hear that, President Trump?
Carolyn Moynihan
Deputy Editor,
MERCATORNET
| The Pope’s approval ratings leave Trump’s in the shade By Carolyn Moynihan Seven in 10 Americans take a favourable view of Pope Francis. Read the full article |  |
| America gets a new president By Sheila Liaugminas Like him or not, the office is bigger than the officeholder. It’s time to rise to the occasion. Read the full article |  |
| The increasingly convincing link between autism and gender dysphoric kids By Michael Cook It’s no longer a kooky theory proposed by marginal psychologists Read the full article |  |
| Reforming music: harmony and discord in the sixteenth century By Chiara Bertoglio When Christians stopped singing from the same hymnbook. Read the full article |  |
| Trump, hillbillies, and the forgotten men and women of America By Carson Holloway Is family the key to generational poverty? Read the full article  |
MERCATORNET | New Media Foundation
Suite 12A, Level 2, 5 George Street, North Strathfied NSW 2137, Australia
Designed by elleston
New Media Foundation | Suite 12A, Level 2, 5 George St | North Strathfield NSW 2137 | AUSTRALIA | +61 2 8005 8605
MercatorNet: Adventures on a gender-sensitive keyboard
.png)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario