This user recognizes that linguistic change is a natural and desirable aspect of human language.
Majority Usage = Correct Grammar
This user recognizes that if most people make the same grammatical "mistake", it ceases to be a mistake and becomes proper grammar, for grammar has no immutable or moral "right" or "wrong" and "correct grammar" is determined by majority usage.
y'all
This user thinks y'all serves a useful purpose as a second-person plural pronoun, and would like to see y'all use it more often.
This user knows that all groups, however crazy they may be, have just as much a right to free speech as anybody else and WILL NOT TOLERATE "hate speech" laws or attempts to prevent people from expressing their views.
When engaged in discussion and debate, I try to keep in mind the aphorism attributed to Bertrand Russell, who is reputed to have said: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” What BR actually wrote was: “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Probably cribbed from W. B. Yeats who a decade earlier had written: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” Which suggests to me that 99% of all creativity is just inadvertent plagiarism. 😃
On the other hand, unreasonable passion can occasionally be helpful. As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
However, if you find yourself in the grip of unreasonable passion, it is wise to heed this warning from Bertrand Russell: "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants."
When browsing the World Wide Web, I am constantly reminded that never in human history has so much weight been given to uninformed opinion. 😃 This trend started centuries ago with published books, then newspapers, then radio, then newsreels, then television, and now social media. Each of these has had more impact than the last because each increased the speed of transmission and the emotional impact of messages.
I believe that all people are cousins. I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but acknowledge the possibility that he was a dupe in a successful plot to assassinate JFK. I believe that Osama Bin Laden funded flying lessons for the Saudi clowns who brought down the twin towers. I believe it to be remarkable that ancient hogwash such as astrology and homeopathy occupies so much mindshare today. I believe conspiracy theories and theorists (see “Shadowland”: A New Project From The Atlantic on the Power and Danger of Conspiracy) to be an existential threat to democracy in the United States of America because the conspiracy constituency has way too much influence in politics today, particularly Republican politics.
The Atlantic's Shadowland project debuted with The Prophecies of Q, The Atlantic executive editor Adrienne LaFrance’s cover story on QAnon published in June of 2020. (Click on a link here to read the full article without a subscription to The Atlantic.) The Atlantic published an online overview of the Shadowland project. Click on the creepy moving human eye GIF in the overview for an animated history of conspiracy theories which begins in 1700. (Click on a link here to access an archived version of the Shadowland overview which has links to read full articles in the Shadowland series without a subscription to The Atlantic.)
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