I think of myself as liberal. In the context of my family, I am moderately liberal, but only because my family consists of one other person, and that person is Gary. If you just thought “You can’t have a family without children,” then take a step to the right of me.
Yesterday made me realize that I am the fuddy-duddiest of all conservatives, and I am old and out of touch.
I was editing an examination. The first few questions began something like this.
Question 1: Ivy runs his own manufacturing shop …
Question 2: John has been your client for years. He wants to move overseas after he retires …
Question 3: The Andersons feel their twenty-year-old son is too young …
Question 4: Your client, Amanda, recently had their small business burglarized …
On Question 1 I thought, “They must have meant Ira or something. I’ll come back to that.”
I sailed past Questions 2 and 3.
I changed Question 4 to “her small business,” because while I have adopted “they” as the plural second-person pronoun we all desire, Amanda is singular, and owns a small business, good for her.
After a few more questions I confess I thought, “Some questions are ‘he’ or ‘she’ and some are ‘they’ and you can’t just switch up pronouns like that in one examination — “
And then I caught on that yes you can, a person can be “they” if that person prefers it. Society moves on. Points for me! Growth points, adaptability points.
Then I backslid and thought, “I suspect that someone else is making a point.” But no, the the Young People at Work said this is normal. Evidently it didn’t take them ten minutes to figure out society has moved on.
I went back and made Ivy run “their own manufacturing shop”. I suppose I might have kept “Ivy runs his own manufacturing shop,” if I were young, but then I realized Ivy is an imaginary person and as such cannot argue with me.