CNN Makes Up Whole New Language with Guide to 'Neopronouns,' 'Nounself Pronouns'
It seems like every few months or so, a brand new woke, Orwellian newspeak term gets foisted on us by some organ of the establishment media.
For instance, many years ago, “black” became “African-American.” Fair enough. But then, in 2020, it switched back to “Black” — only now we had to capitalize it or we were some kind of retrograde mouth-breather. “Hispanic” or “Latino/a” became “Latinx” — somewhat to the consternation of most “Latinx” people, it’s worth noting.
“Homeless” became “unhoused.” “Illegal immigrants” became “undocumented immigrants” became “irregular migrants.”
And now, an absurd, deluded attempt to remake the English language by trying to do away with “he'” and “she'” is simply called a “neopronoun.” I’ll give you that it’s shorter, but the neologism is otherwise worse in every conceivable way.
But don’t tell CNN that. On Saturday, the cable news outlet’s website published a handy cheat-sheet to the new language titled, “A guide to neopronouns, from ae to ze.”
“Some of the most common words in the English language have gender markers, including pronouns. But not all of them are binary,” the piece noted. “Consider the singular ‘they,’ preferred by some nonbinary and trans people for whom gendered pronouns do not fit.
“And then there are neopronouns (‘new’ pronouns), gender-neutral or nonbinary pronouns that are distinct from the common she, he and they. Neopronouns include terms like ‘xe’ and ’em,’ and some of them even date back several centuries, when they were introduced by writers as a solution for referring to subjects without assuming gender. Now, they’re also commonly used by nonbinary and trans people.”
A guide to neopronouns, from ae to ze https://t.co/8vzoELbffQ
— CNN (@CNN) August 12, 2023
CNN consulted with the LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign to come up with some examples of how to pronounce and use “neopronouns.” It didn’t come across any better than it sounds:
- xe/xyr (commonly pronounced zee/zeer): “I asked xyr to come to the movies. Xe said yes!”
- ze/zir or ze/hir (commonly pronounced zee/zeer or zee/heer): “The teacher graded zir paper today, and ze got an A!”
- fae/faer (commonly pronounced fay/fair): “Fae told me that faer best friend is in town this week.”
- ey/em/eir (commonly pronounced aye/em/air): “I’m taking em to the park today. Ey wants to bring eir camera to capture the garden for emself!”
Stellar. I’ve always wanted everyday water-cooler conversation and/or work email threads to sound every bit as impenetrable as E.E. Cummings’ “anyone lived in a pretty how town.” First text messaging did away with that pesky capitalization and now, it seems, the wokeistas have done away with coherence. The cummings-ization of American conversation is officially nearing completion.
But wait, there’s more! (Or less, depending on how much value you place on comprehensibility.) In addition to “neopronouns,” CNN explains, there are also “nounself pronouns.”
“Other neopronouns are completely original to their user — some may choose to select a noun to describe themselves, like ‘star’ or ‘starself’ in place of binary pronouns like ‘she’ or ‘herself.’ These are called nounself neopronouns,” the article read.
If this sounds absolutely preposterous on its face, it gets even worse when you examine the origin of “nounself neopronouns”: a social media platform so wretched it makes 4chan look like “Firing Line.”
According to CNN, “nounself pronouns are neopronouns that use nature and other inspirations as nonbinary or genderless descriptors. Linguist Jason D’Angelo told The New York Times that nounself pronouns were popularized on the social platform Tumblr around 2012 and 2013 and remain in use among members of fandoms who may take their nounself pronouns from the properties they enjoy.
“For someone who uses the nounself pronoun ‘leaf,’ that may look like: ‘I hope leaf knows how proud we are that leaf is getting to know leafself better!’ or ‘Leaf arrived at the coffee shop before me; I was mortified to have been late to meet leaf.’”
Yeah, personally, I’m staying away from anyone who calls themselves “leaf,” particularly if they got the notion from the cesspool that is Tumblr. But — and here’s a shocker — despite the fact nounself neopronouns are a snowflake fad started in the dimmest corner of the left-bubble social media landscape, academics are reportedly taking this piffle seriously.
“In a 2016 paper on the emerging pronouns, Danish linguist Ehm Hjorth Miltersen wrote that nounself pronouns offer a way for people to establish identity beyond just gender,” CNN noted.
“By finding one’s desired nounself pronouns, one can ‘can construct new ways to identify and be perceived by others that are more coordinate with complex and diverse identities.’ Miltersen wrote that one nounself pronoun user who responded to their questionnaire wrote that they sometimes use ‘pup/pupself’ pronouns to ‘express a level of fun, happiness and excitement … in me.’”
Fine. My nounself neopronouns for the day are nausea/nauseaself. If you’ll excuse nausea, nausea has to remove nauseaself to the nearest restroom because nausea is feeling extremely, extremely nauseous.
Twitter was similarly unimpressed, both with CNN and “neopronouns”:
Example #9,571 why the public doesn’t trust you nor should they.
— Brandon M Showalter (@BrandonMShow) August 13, 2023
Embarrassing pic.twitter.com/OyJrzundVV
— brit (@pashedmotatos) August 12, 2023
EDIT: “A guide to talking to someone with severe mental illness” https://t.co/Cl9oUh3BO9
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) August 12, 2023
This is why I keep a dictionary with a 1999 copyright date. https://t.co/OnVbsRSWwh
— oƃlɐpᴉH (@Hidalgo_76_) August 12, 2023
Of course, the problem is that this is funny until it isn’t. No normal human would ever consider using this guide — yet. In spite of the derision, however, the fact this is on CNN’s reporting agenda means the writing is on the wall.
“Pronouns in profile” used to be a bit of a laugh; now every Democrat politician and progressive functionary that doesn’t want to get canceled had better put “he/him” or “she/her” in their Twitter bio, even though the overwhelming majority of humanity (including them) goes by the same pronouns that English speakers have been using for millennia. Liberal politicians and journalists are forced to use the neologism “Latinx” despite the fact it draws derision from the very people it’s intended to address.
Chuckle while you can. Then, watch and wait to see who’s the first person at your company to get a stern talking-to from HR for not calling some unbalanced intern “leaf/leafself.”
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