Genderless Pronouns: I Think You're Using Them Wrongly

 A headline caught my eye the other day, along the lines of: [Insert name here] wanted to use the pronoun 'they' when referring to themself.

Okay; I understand that there are people who are in search of an identity, or have established an identity outside of traditional societal norms; and they are uncomfortable being referred to as 'he' or 'she', 'him' or 'her'. I totally get that. I am one-hundred-percent supportive.

However, I think that the term is being used incorrectly.

The English verb "to be" is conjugated in a variety of ways, depending upon the subject of the sentence.

When referring to more than one person, we say "They are..." We do this because 'they' is a plural pronoun.

When referring to a single person we say "He/She is..." We do this because 'he/she' is a singular pronoun.

When referring to a person of undeclared gender, we should be saying "They is..." We would do this because 'they', in this instance, is being used as a singular pronoun.

So: they is, they was.

The form "they are" should only be used to refer to more than one person.

Now I'll sit by to catch shit from everybody who thinks I'm insensitive, anti-gender-fluidity, or splitting hairs.

Fergus' Big Adventure

Fergus is one of two cats in our household. a grey tabby with an elegant white goatee, a pink nose and worried little eyes. He joined us from the Ottawa Humane Society, just over a year ago.

In the house, Fergus is a confident cat. He marches around with his tail up in the air, and when he meows, he expects answers--now. He's affectionate, athletic and intensely curious. He's at Mommy's side for large parts of the day. In most respects, Fergus is what they call a co-pilot.

Outside the house, Fergus goes feral, immediately hiding away and not recognizing familiar faces. If someone comes to the door when Fergus is down there, we know instantly, because he comes sprinting up the stairs for his life!

Fergus and his buddy, Buddy, enjoy trips onto the balcony. In the summer, there are plants to play in; in winter, there is the snow (dig-dig-dig!);  and, always, there is plenty to look at through the railings.

Our balcony is bordered by a continuous wooden rail, about six inches wide. It extends beyond the dividing panels, so that if you sight along it, you'll see all the way to the end.

In recent months, Fergus had taken occasionally to jumping up onto the rail. He'd catch it and scramble up, so I always had plenty of time to retrieve him.

Thursday afternoon, December 31, around 2pm, I took the cats outside. All was going normally, when Fergus, out of the blue, leapt up onto the rail,  executed a perfect four-point landing, and crossed and jumped down into the next balcony.

The next little while features a comedy of unfortunate circumstances. Our neighbour was home at the time; he opened his door, to see what the commotion was about, and Fergus ran inside--then right back outside, and up onto the rail again. Realizing then that he was in unfamiliar territory, he began giving off alarm sounds, then jumped down to the balcony at two-over.

We watched, called and shook treat bags for hours. As far as we could tell, Fergus was still up on that balcony. Every couple of days thereafter, we would

check the yards below, for signs of a cat landing. Nothing. On January 2 or thereabouts, we had a good snow, followed by a couple of chilly nights. We still hadn't seen or heard from Fergus, and hopes were beginning to fade.

In the meantime, I had done a bit of reading. American sources say that a indoor-only cat should not stay out for extended periods below about 8 degrees celsius. Well, this is Ottawa; where the temperature starts going below 8 degrees in September. The chances just weren't looking good.

Still, we didn't stop hoping. Every night, we would shout for Fergus and rattle a bag of treats. We kept setting out bowls of food--just in case. We had a night-vision camera rigged to view the balcony. We slept in shifts.

Fast forward to Tuesday. First, I noticed that the kibble bowl was empty. I pointed this out to Tonia, who related that Buddy had had a few outings and had snuck a nibble or two. I counterpointed out, as it were, that the kibble was now gone. Later, I realized that the wet food had been eaten, and that there were kitty prints in the fresh-fallen snow on the balcony rail.

Peeking into neighbouring balconies, I saw clear indications that a cat had been visiting. Thank you, snow, for preserving tracks and landing marks.

Now, in the 30-odd years that I have been living here, I have only once seen a cat up on the balcony rail; about 10 years ago. Also, the nocturnal visits meant a cat was spending its time outdoors. I put two and two together, and came up with Fergus.

He visited again Tuesday night, but not on Wednesday night. Bit of a noisy night, with salt trucks prowling round, people grabbing garbage and recycling off their balconies, etc.; plus it was very lightly snowing/raining.

Last night, we were ready. Tonia took the first shift, until just after midnight. She kept the lights mostly off. As she was getting up from the couch,  she spotted him, and they made eye contact for a few seconds; then he skedaddled (that's an old term for "fucked off"). So I came down, maintained the vigil. About two o'clock in the morning, I concluded that I wasn't going to catch him tonight. As I got up, I saw his little head peeking around the corner at me. Shit, thought I. I grabbed the bowl of food off the balcony, threw it into the microwave for about 15 seconds, to warm it up and make it stinkier, then placed it back onto the balcony. I decided just to take a glance down the row.

Fergus was sitting on the rail, two balconies away, just watching.

Forgetting myself, I began faintly calling his name. He started to meow at me. At first, I thought that they were warning meows; but then I realized that he was coming toward me! It took everything I had to keep my cool; yes, hi Fergus, it's me, good kitty; here, smell my fingers, see, you know me; hi, guy, how've you been--grab!

 I was expecting an explosion of feline cursing and slashing, but he was quiet. I stepped back inside, and closed the door; and Fergus was home.

The next few minutes were pandemonium. Fergus meowed his face off and ran upstairs to give Mommy cuddles; then he needed to be fed, and plied with treats; now he's getting reacquainted with Buddy, who must be gobsmacked by the whole thing; two weeks and twelve hours ago, Fergus went outside and disappeared; now, two weeks later, he has magically reappeared.

In hindsight, we have realized that Fergus spent two weeks holed up on someone's balcony, probably terrified, not moving, with very little to eat or drink. Thank fate that it has been unseasonably warm for the past two weeks.

*Phew!*

-Bill

Reality Check: Transfer of Consciousness

There is a certain public misconception, bolstered largely by Hollywood, that, in a few years' time, we'll all be able to transfer our consciousnesses into a robot body.

I offer up some arguments as to why that is unlikely ever to happen.

First off, the technology argument.

• The human brain is an incredibly complex machine, with something on the order of 100-billion synapses--the tiny components that store information. It is all arranged in a roughly hemispherical shape. To transfer all of that data, the brain must be scanned. The only way in which we can scan below the surface layer is to remove that layer. Thus, it must be a destructive process. Second, it must occur immediately after death, and not take too long, lest we lose information. I imagine that the process would, in implementation, be similar to that depicted in the television series Upload.
• The technology for scanning the brain hasn't been invented yet and, given the current advance of technology, won't likely be for at least another hundred years.
• In order for this to work, you will need a computer. If you are to be conscious, then this computer must be capable of consciousness itself--or figure out how to simulate it. It must also have a tremendous amount of storage space. We've barely scratched the surface of understanding consciousness; and, again, its implementation is likely to be in excess of 100 years away. 

Second, the pragmatic argument.

• All of the above presumes that you will die, and then, after a brief pause, you will regain consciousness in a computer-generated environment. I don't believe that. I believe that consciousness is tied to the physical domain it occupies. When you die, it's game over for you. You will never regain consciousness again. What will regain consciousness will have all of your memories and experiences--but it won't be you. It will be like a You II.

Finally, a thought experiment--one of Einstein's Gedankenexperiments.

Imagine this scenario:

You die, and your brain is scanned. The results are then fed into a network of ten computers, each of which will host a new you. The network signals arrive at the computers simultaneously.

My question is: In which computer will you wake up in? All of them at once? That would be mightily confusing.

Until you can answer that question with a valid argument, the answer is: "It ain't gonna happen anytime soon."

Are you really enthusiastic about your life carrying on without you?

Because that's about the best science will be able to do for about a thousand years.

Be well,

-Bill

Learn to Pronounce!

There are certain words in the English language which are habitually mispronounced by most people, and it drives me nuts. The pronunciation is clear from the spelling; yet folks constantly mispronounce.

Here's a short list.

"Tempachure" This one bothers me a lot. In fact, the mispronunciation is so common that I genuinely believe that most people do not know the correct way. Ugh!

"Febyuary" Is it really that hard to pronounce the 'r' after the 'b'?

"Fitty" This one grates on my nerves. When you can't even pronounce "fifty," I... bleah. This one is now working its way into advertising, and in ten years, everybody but me will be saying it that way.

"Athalete" Why the compulsion to put a vowel between the 'th' and the 'l'? Jesus...

"Ezzackly" Yes, exactly.

"Gummint" This is more an Americanism, but it's being heard more frequently north of the border, these days.

"Ax" If I'm greeted one more time by a young person asking, "Hey, dude, can I ax you something?" I'll scream.

There are others; but these are the ones which really grate on my nerves.

Now, that said, I know that there are plenty of people out there who have bothered to learn the correct pronunciation of words; the problem is that there are plenty more who haven't. It's such a basic thing; we use language every single day of our lives.

Be well,

-Bill

Weasels

Over the years, I've noticed a few disturbing trends in advertising. They are more or less obvious, but I'm going to point them out anyway.

The first and most obvious trend is advertising pollution. Apart from when outdoors, it's growing increasingly difficult to find something at which to stare, which is not sporting some sort of advertising.

Just in my lifetime, there has been a huge explosion in the amount of advertising to which we are exposed. Print, radio and television were already advertising media; but now we have the Internet; this post is probably surrounded by ads.

Just on a quick glance around the room here, I notice the following brand names: Lenovo, HP, Epson, Grand & Toy, Bell, Fluid, LCBO, Band-Aid, Friskies, Kleenex, Samsung, Tensor, McDonald's, Logitech, C. Crane--and I'll stop there. It's not a big room; maybe four metres square.

We really can't escape it. Even our clothing carries brand logos.

It's only going to get worse.

Second up, I don't appreciate the number of weasel words and phrases that advertisers use. "My husband was showing the signs of a heart attack, so he chewed..." They carefully don't state that he was, in fact, having a heart attack; only that he had the symptoms. Another good (and recent) example is a particular website touting its price reviews. "When I see the Good Price badge, I absolutely trust that." That's nice; you must be a trusting soul to give it a thumbs-up without any supporting evidence.

The third trend, and the one that I find most unreasonable, is the use of "simulations" of the product in action. Wait a minute. If you are advertising for a product, shouldn't you actually have to show the product in actual use? There is currently a cleaning product using that method; and I'm sorry, but there ought to be a law about that. Show the actual product, under real-life conditions, in realtime.

What I do infer, when I see that kind of advertising, is that the product obviously can't cut it in real life; and I add that product to my Do Not Buy list. Their attempt to induce me to buy the product has backfired. I can't believe that nobody out there realizes this. It's not, to borrow the vernacular, rocket science.

There. I feel better. This better moment was sponsored by Pfizer.

Be well,

-Bill

FM DX

As regular readers are aware, I have been DX'ing now for some 45 years. I started very young.

Over those 45 years, I've always confined my search for long-distance stations to the AM broadcast band. Recently, however, I've become interested in FM DX'ing; and I recently gave it a try.

It's different. Propagation at FM frequencies happens infrequently, and is largely seasonal, occurring, at temperate latitudes, mostly in the warm months.

FM DX sounds differently from AM DX. There is next to no fluttering; signals vary mostly by strength. You'll find that, in general, FM DX is much more directional; from here in Ottawa, I've heard signals from upstate Near York (about 100 km to the south), but still haven't logged the station in Rockland, Ontario, some 40 km east.

Identification is a little harder than on AM; music tends to predominate, and so the music format can be a strong clue. Voice identifications are less frequent, and more often station nicknames (e.g. "Jack FM") are colloquially used. Also, station listings are harder to come by.

I've quickly learned that one invaluable resource for FM DX'ing is forecast maps. One good such example is the DX Info Centre, maintained by William Hepburn. To cut to the quick: watch for a coloured area shading where you live. You can advance the forecast with the left and right arrows.

My total thus far is modest: 37 stations. But, it's a beginning; let's see where it stands in 30 years. ;)

Be well,

-Bill

The End of Knowledge

The title is a bit of a teaser.

For the past 50 years, I have immersed myself in matters astronomical. A voracious reader, I've pored through astronomy publications and periodicals, and drained the Internet of virtually every bit of information I can glean from it. I have about 30 years of visual and telescopic amateur astronomy, in addition. Hell, by grade seven I could talk the average person's ear off about stuff they wouldn't even have understood.

Where does that leave me? At this point, my base of general astronomical knowledge is as great as any amateur's. Ask me virtually anything about astronomy, or cosmology, or even astrophysics, and 99 percent of the time, I'll have an answer.

Let me be clear: I don't pretend to have the skills and knowledge of someone with a degree in astronomy; there are areas, such as orbital calculations, that I've not really touched on, more for lack of resources than for anything else. I haven't done calculations involving gravity (though I did deduce the rules for planetary velocity at about age 18).

Point is, to learn anything more about astronomy, I would just about have to enroll in a university. I'm running out of Internet resources; I scan the astronomy news sites daily. More and more, I find myself branching out into physics, particle physics, and quantum theory--there are plenty of resources out there, including lectures.

I watch television shows about astronomy, but generally the only new things I learn from them are minutiae (this morning, I learned that the first name of Mr. Penzias, who with Robert Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation in the 1960s, is Arnold.)

My best bet is to search university public resources, as some universities put their curriculum online. To that end, I've begun to take out my math and play with it again, so to speak. I finished high-school math a year early; and I keep my mind nimble; so it really shouldn't be a challenge.

That's it; just bitching/bragging on a beautiful spring morning.

My knee bursitis, by the way, now appears to be ebbing. Last night, my legs were merely stumps, not bloody stumps; and I'm looking forward to a day of good legs, as soon as I've done my priming walk of about 300 metres. Riding the bike actually seems to be helping; the trick is to go slow and build up gradually. My legs at this point do not have a lot of strength or stamina.

Be well,

-Bill