Idea of gender-neutral language is a fairy tale

TO THE EDITOR:

One of the chief virtues of University life is the diversity of opinion found on campus, and UNC is no exception in this regard. But from the perennial nattering campus carbuncle the “Pit Preacher,” (a double entendre unfortunately lost on most undergraduates) to the fatuous fads of the inevitable politically correct activists, the din of divergent voices can quickly turn from constructive diversity into an overwhelming cacophony of competing imperatives.

This background noise might be paralyzing if one does not have the constitution necessary to tune out the background noise of undergraduate outrage as per this or that token crisis-of-the-semester. I would like to give kudos to Editor-in-Chief Andrew Dunn, in this respect, for not adopting the “gender-neutral language” recently petitioned for.

Many editors-in-chief might think to themselves, “Why not change something as seemingly trivial as a few words, if only to placate these ostensibly well-meaning students?” Fortunately, Dunn apparently saw through the manufactured outrage of the tempest in a teapot that is “gender-neutral language,” plumping for clarity of meaning rather than quietly acquiescing to the resident language police.

One needn’t go into the dismal details of “gender-neutral language” to see that, like many such pseudo-issues floating around college campuses, it is the result of too much mental masturbation rather than intellectual intercourse. While the issue possesses a certain charming, naïve idealism, the idea that language standards, however seemingly trivial, can and should change because of the eccentric whims of a peeved minority is little more than a fairy tale.



Benjamin Zich
Senior
English