Obama's Vice President a 'He?'

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

August 19th, 2008
Obama’s vice president a ‘he?’

RALEIGH, North Carolina - Barack Obama won’t say yet who his running mate will be but on Tuesday he did describe the qualities he wants in a vice president. Briefly put: “he” will be the opposite of Dick Cheney, the man who currently holds the office.

“My vice president will be a member of the executive branch, he won’t be one of these fourth branches of government where he thinks he’s above the law,” Obama told a crowd in North Carolina.

Note the choice of pronoun. An Obama spokeswoman said not to read into that word choice but Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton — two women said to be on the Illinois senator’s list — may want to take note. Obama went on to describe what he was NOT looking for in a running mate, painting a stark contrast with Cheney, who spearheaded President George W. Bush’s energy task force, influences White House foreign policy, including the Iraq war, and has claimed to be a member of the legislative branch because of his tie-breaking role in the U.S. Senate.

“I won’t hand over my energy policy to my vice president,” Obama said. “I won’t have my vice president engineering my foreign policy for me.” Moving on to the qualities he did want, Obama said, “I want somebody who has integrity, who’s in politics for the right reasons. I want somebody who is … independent, somebody who is able to say to me, ‘You know what, Mr. President? I think you’re wrong on this and here’s why.’”

Read more: http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/08/19/obamas-vice-president-a-he

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[valerief]

1. BO has to say "he" since there's no gender-neutral pronoun to use.

"He" is the default pronoun to use in such instances.

I think "Pe" (short for "person") should replace "He" and "She" since "It" has an inanimate connotation.

[Skittles]

3. um

"he or she" is always an option

[valerief]

6. Like this?

“My vice president will be a member of the executive branch. He or she won’t be one of these fourth branches of government where he or she thinks he or she’s above the law,” Obama told a crowd in North Carolina.

Too clumsy methinks.

[bunkerbuster1]

43. "that person" works in this sentence.

Whether this was a Freudian slip or just a grammatical habit, we shall see.

[billyoc]

4. They.

:hi:

[valerief]

5. I hate when the plural "they" is used as a pronoun for a single person. nt

[billyoc]

12. Singular "they" beats that (s)he he/she he or she shit.

:hi:

[valerief]

13. There is no singular "they." People that use it that way are using it incorrectly.

Makes my skin crawl when they do.

My favorite "he or she" or "he/she" abomination is "s/he." I actually use it. I'd use pe, but everyone would think it was a typo.

[billyoc]

17. Singular "they" is not just a good idea, it's the LAW.

:rofl:

http://www.justice.gc.ca/fra/min-dept/pub/legis/n41.html

[valerief]

19. Holy crap, I'm getting old. God forbid the text is rewritten

so that the appropriate pronoun is used.
:banghead:
Thanks for the link.

[billyoc]

23. lol, you're right about it, I just had to find some wacky link.

I use "they" incorrectly because it feels less cumbersome then the alternatives. :hi:

[valerief]

24. I understand. I probably do, too, sometimes, but I still hate it.

I hate having to be gender-specific when it doesn't matter and then having to make a mistake (like using "they") just to accommodate the language limitation. Genderspeak is such a tool of oppression.

Then again, I guess I should be more worried about the devalued dollar and never collecting Social Security.

:yoiks:

[demokatgurrl]

48. TOO funny. But that's in Canada

They could just write in French, because they can use the pronoun "on". I think- my French is not actually that good.

[LeftishBrit]

41. Well, using singular 'you' is also historically incorrect

A few hundred years ago, 'thou' was singular and 'you' was plural.

I think singular 'they' is well on the road to being standard English. In writing, I use (s)he, but there's no obvious simple way to pronounce that!

[valerief]

52. You make a good point.

[sourmilk]

51. It's been common usage since the 14th century, however.

Used extensively by such authors as Jane Austen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, the King James Bible, The Spectator, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Frances Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, Henry Fielding, Maria Edgeworth, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, William Makepeace Thackeray, Sir Walter Scott, George Eliot , Charles Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, John Ruskin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, George Bernard Shaw, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, W. H. Auden, Lord Dunsany, George Orwell, and C. S. Lewis.


There are quite a few other USAisms that make my skin crawl much more readily...

[Igel]

56. They've been using it that way for 600+ years.

I really hate it when people don't get the manual for their native language, don't you? I mean, even Shakespeare and Chaucer got it wrong, and they were on the committee. Just goes to show that when you don't make the design specs for the language clear, end users get it wrong.

Were you on the original English organizing committee back then?

I mean, I wasn't partial to the y- prefix for gerunds, and scrapping it and its phonetic variants for all but folk uses ("summer is a-coming in") was a good move. But replacing the -in from English 1.0b a with -ing was a boneheaded move. Who can keep gerunds and present participles straight--well, I guess some of the idiots not with the program managed to keep it clear for a few hundred years, but they finally got confused with enough "instruction". I was just a clerk back then.

That breaking/vowel-shift thing Beatrice worked out was great. I mean, "mouse":"mice", "goose":"geese". Regular, but only if you know the rules--and we're not telling.

I rather liked how the committee for Eng 3.2, with all those powdered wigs, was hoodwinked by John to dispose of the regularity in "I am, I'm not, I amn't" just based on current pronunciation standards for "amn't" at the time, and have gotten people to think that "I are" is right in some instances. I mean, seriously--"I'm not, xxxxx (for "I ain't"), aren't I"? "Aren't I smart? Yes, I are!" Sort of destroyed the regularity with the rest of the paradigm, but he always was a trickster. (Fortunately, I can still say, "wasn't he"; his twin's proposal to replace "wasn't" with "want" was caught in subcommittee, now "want it?" Hee-hee.) But that's the committee--once they institute a rule, they really have a hard time saying, "oops, my wrong". Plus it's made for so many wonderful social judgments, and feelings of superiority among the "educated" people that kowtow to our dicta.

Gotta go. I'm late in submitting my proposal for ejectives in English 4.0b. A whole new consonant series--t', p', k', ch'--to go with the tense/lax consonants we have now. Make hundreds of millions of people believe they don't know how to communicate and they have to do what we say to be "right", and just watch the outcry from the idiots. (But the Georgians will have an easy time.)

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. Singular "they" doesn't beat anything...it's wrong

:-)

[valerief]

22. Check out the link on post #17. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Shit?

Is that how you pronounce (s)he/it?

[AllHereTruth]

32. I hate reading an eloquent article, enjoying every sentence, then all of a sudden "(s)he" is thrown

[LeftishBrit]

40. Agreed!

[merwin]

7. He, She, and Pe.

Pronounced like Pee?

[valerief]

10. You betcha. nt

[merwin]

28. Pe just sounds odd to me...

not sure why

[valerief]

53. I'll bet Barack sounded odd at first until you got used to it. Now it sounds very normal. nt

[Occulus]

36. I'm terribly sorry, but that's just never going to come into common use

:rofl:

[valerief]

54. Of course, it won't. I don't even use it. I just WANT to use it. It can even

apply to corporations since they're persons or personhoods (what's the damn difference?).

[Bucky]

49. Should the plural of "pe" be "pee-pee"?

[valerief]

55. No. They. Silly Willy. But it should really be Pez. nt

[Mojambo]

2. It's time to announce it. Because these speculation articles are getting thiiiiiiiin! n/t

[bunkerbuster1]

44. Naw, better to keep the Lamestream Media reporting on it another day or three.

Good strategery.

[peoli]

8. how about 'my peeps'

[wisteria]

9. I know it isn't likely, but Senator Kerry matches the criteria extremely well. n/t

[valerief]

11. He'd be perfect. nt

[Dr.Phool]

18. Opposite of Cheney. Gotta be Kucinich!

In my dreams.

[valerief]

25. Oh, don't make me dare hope. nt

[bunkerbuster1]

45. I'd be grinning ear-to-ear if Obama had the balls to do that...

but face facts, it ain't gonna be Dennis.

[Zhade]

27. THAT'S MEAN

YOU MAKE ME CRY

I so wish he'd pick DK.

[The Hope Mobile]

34. Feingold would fit well too

[Fearless]

39. Mine too! Lol.

[Mind_your_head]

20. Kucinich would be a lifesaver eom

[Zhade]

26. Well, he is a HE.

:p

[YvonneCa]

35. Sure...

...does. :)

[iconicgnom]

14. I hate having to struggle over a neutral pronoun.

In more formal settings and dealing with universal objective matters I tend to go with "she", although I'll change midstream, and change back, so long as I'm referencing different events. I go with "she" because it's becoming much more common practice. Males who might take affront that in these circumstances "she" is exclusive wouldn't be able to follow the subject matter anyway, whereas habitually using "he" in fact does perpetuate a de facto exclusiveness.

[valerief]

21. I still like when people refer to a baby as "it." nt

[davidnc76]

29. Count Kaine and Bayh out

And count Biden in. If he wants someone who will tell him he is wrong the only man with the backbone to do that between the three of them is Joe Biden, or maybe Wesley Clark.

[2Design]

30. see michael moore wants caroline kennedy - I like that idea a lot n/t

[Spiffarino]

31. He started by referring to Cheney

The "he" followed it very closely, so I doubt there is anything to be inferred from it.

[Mind_your_head]

33. Oh, pick Hillary!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

:sarcasm: :eyes:

[Alexander]

37. Clark. Bank on it.

[knixphan]

38. Still say Biden

[stlsaxman]

42. so does NPR, CNN and all the others... even after Biden said "I'm not the guy".

i'm heartbroken.

[Eurobabe]

47. Been saying Biden for a long time

Naysayers can go jump off a farging cliff somewhere. :rofl:

[Eurobabe]

46. Pity that poor soul that uploaded all those Sebelius videos this AM

Waste of time.

[No Elephants]

50. As long as he mentioned Dick and energy, wish he had mentioned Halliburton.

[nsd]

57. I find something else Obama said more interesting.

"I want somebody who is mad right now, that people are losing their jobs. And is mad right now that people have seen their incomes decline, and want to rebuild the middle class in this country. That's the kind of person that I want; somebody who in their gut knows where they came from and believes that we have to grow this country from the bottom up." link


Somebody who knows where they came from? Grow this country from the bottom up? That suggests a VP who comes from a modest background, maybe working class.

I think it would tend to argue against Bayh (senator's son) or Sebelius (governor's daughter) and towards Biden (car salesman's son) or Kaine (welder's son).

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

58. We can also deduce by the "opposite comment" that he'll be skinny and human. n/t