View from the North 40: Maybe I can call it a grammar affirmation exercise

This whole idea started out lighthearted, but then it got all data-driven and serious. Leave it to the science nerds to research the life out of the fun.

I had a thought about pronouns that made me laugh, y’know, on the inside. But the more I thought about it, the more I laughed until I actually laughed out loud. You’ve been there right? If not, you really need to reassess your approach to life.

No doubt, a bunch of you are yawning and eye rolling, checking your wrist like you still wear a watch and are half checked-out of here already. Slow your roll, readers, because I’m not talking about a treatise on one of the eight parts of speech and other grammar matters that only, maybe, .02% of the population cares about.

I’m actually talking about pronouns as a tool to express social gender affirmation, as in “Jane Doe (she/her)” or “Jane Doe (they/them/their).”

Oh, yeah, I’m going there, with all of the bravery only the truly foolish can muster.

But don’t fear, I’m not doing this out of either solidarity or disrespect. I just want to declare my pronouns as “Pam (I/me/my)” so I can cause a conversation like this:

Person 1: Do you think Pam could give me ride today?

Person B: Yeah, I think I could.

Person 1: I’m not asking you to do it. I know you’re busy.

Person B: Of course, I wasn’t offering. I’m on my way to my appointment now, but I am free right now to take you.

Person 1: That doesn’t make sense.

Person B: You’re right. I should’ve said ‘I is free right now.’

Person 1: No, you were right to begin with, ‘I am free.’

Person B: I know you’re free, and I know I’m not free, but I is.

(Pam, I/me/my, drives up in my grandma-esque four-dour sedan.)

Person B: Finally, I is here now and this is my mess to explain. (And he/she/it/they/you exits scene.)

You see, it’s hilarious because Person B’s use of “I,” “me” and “my” when referring to his/her/them self and when referring to the Pam, who is I/me, confuses Person 1, who isn’t aware of my stated pronoun preference. And the verbs are totally wonky.

And, well, OK, it’s no “Who’s on First,” which readers who weren’t raised properly will just have to look up on YouTube, but it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to that classic verbal slapstick.

All cracking myself up aside, I did want to lead into this topic more tactfully than I did, but that required research because tact is not named on my list of natural gifts and acquired skills. My research led me to some resent reports like “Introducing a gender-neutral pronoun in a natural gender language: the influence of time on attitudes and behavior” and “What you need to know about pronouns?”

(And, by the by, don’t get all snarky about that weirdly misused question mark used by the author of the second article. We all make mistakes, plus, the author, Clara Smith, Ph.D., is from the University of Arkansas where, I’m pretty sure, they recognize “y’all” as a proper pronoun. But I digress.)

The point here is that, while I was googling up a storm on he/she/it/they/you, I discovered a whole new pronoun topic from the Harvard Business Review site in 2011: “Your Use of Pronouns Reveals Your Personality” by James W. Pennebaker.

Pennebaker helped write a computer program that counted and categorized words in texts, transcripts, chats, etc. The program differentiated content words (which convey meaning) from function words (like pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions and auxiliary verbs that are the “connective tissue of language”). His research determined that function words are important keys to a person’s psychological state and reveal insights into a person’s honesty, stability, and sense of self.

And if that doesn’t make sense, here’s a couple examples.

The researchers fed transcripts of court testimony into the program. The findings said liars avoid the use of “I” and instead say “we” and use sentences like “That’s not the kind of thing that anyone with integrity would do.”

Researchers also analyzed the use of “I” and found that “I” makes up, about 6.5% of a depressed person’s words, compared to 4% for a non-depressed person, which is, apparently, a “huge” statistical difference.

That was a real buzzkill for my whole I/me/my pronoun bit.

Now I don’t know if I should keep laughing my way to an apology for being insensitive about gender affirmation pronouns, or if I should buy a sun lamp and start doing yoga while chanting self-affirmation phrases because I’ve used “I” as 6.2% of my words in this column.

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And, now that I think about it, I should probably apologize for that last paragraph, too. Humor, like grammar, is tricky business sometimes at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .