THE HEADLINE THAT BROKE ME

and the trouble with pronouns

As the most read newspaper in the world, The Daily Mail’s grammatical errors and hyperbole are legendary. The Mail’s occasionally stellar reporting doesn’t seem to be diminished by its slash and burn approach to the English language — and it must secretly revel in these never-ending and violent maulings. How else to explain?

Mail loyalists like me may lean toward masochism. That’s why I spent too much time this morning trying to solve the Mail’s latest, absurd grammatical riddle.

OK — parents are alleging that troubled star Ezra Miller is abusing their daughter. But why would the parents report that they, themselves were only 25 when Miller tried to climb into bed with their underage child? This seems an impossible assertion, putting the parent’s ages at 11 when the incident happened. Does the Mail mean that Ezra was 25 or the parents were? Also, was Miller the plier of alcohol or were the tearful parents? And who did the brainwashing? Hint: queer in the headline above is the giveaway and offers a roadmap but doesn’t solve the inherent confusion.

First graph:

Scandal-hit star Ezra Miller 'groomed' and then 'brainwashed' the teenage girl THEY are accused in court papers of controlling, her tearful mom told DailyMail.com exclusively.

The piece goes on, interchanging the plural pronoun they, for the parents (correctly) but also for Miller (not so much)) who identifies as “non-binary and queer.” So there it is; an article made incomprehensible, the meaning of the story changed because the subject claims a certain pronoun.

We have a problem.

Even though the Mail can be grammatically challenged at the best of times, this was certainly deliberate and was repeated throughout the piece.

What do we do at this crossroads? We are now corrupting our language and our ability to understand and be understood for a tiny minority to whom the woke elites have granted all power. In fact, police in the UK opened an investigation into a Catholic journalist accused of misgendering someone through Twitter. From the BBC:

Surrey Police investigation over 'misgendering' tweets

Published20 March 2019

The force said it had received an allegation on 15 October "in relation to a number of tweets which were posted in October 2018".

"A thorough investigation is being carried out to establish whether any criminal offences have taken place," it said.

"A 44-year-old woman has been asked to attend a voluntary interview in relation to the allegation as part of our ongoing investigation."

The allegation was withdrawn. But understand that in the UK — the seat of our beautiful, complex language — police will show up at your door for pronoun non-compliance. It seems nothing is more important than appeasing the grievances of an ever growing woke constituency.

We are losing the ability to understand one another, the basic currency of a thriving society. I think it’s time to pump the brakes.

British journalist and academic Joanna Williams is our guest this week on Trish Wood is Critical - discussing her book How Woke Won. And based on this bewildering newspaper headline - I think Joanna is correct.