The Headline in the Los Angeles Times proclaims: "Only Men Can Be Flashers, Judge Says." (Click the link to see the whole article)
Robert W. Armstrong, a Superior Court judge in Riverside, California, dismissed charges of indecent exposure against a woman who exposed herself to a 14-year-old boy. The judge claims that the law against indecent exposure applies only to a person who "...exposes his person..." The judge goes on to say that "Usually when a section proscribes conduct, it's 'his or her.' This one is not. It's gender specific."
Either the judge or his grammar teacher was drawn off the correct grammatical path by the idiotic, artificial constructions of the politically correct revisionists. As a result, a man may be prosecuted for flashing, but a woman will not. I respectfully submit that his honor should master grammar as completely as he has the law.
I have already stated that the use of fake pronouns like hu and his/her is not good grammar, but rather a waste of time. Now we can see that it's worse than that. It has actually twisted the administration of the law.
The rule in grammar is fairly straightforward: In the phrase cited above, the pronoun, his, is a reflexive pronoun; it refers back to the non-gender-specific noun, person. In such cases, grammarians explain, his takes on the non-gender-specific nature of person.
Only in the mind of a political correctness idiot is there a need to add the words, or her. If there were, in fact, a requirement to do this, all government bodies would be forced to review every law written before (circa) 1970 and to correct every instance of the non-gender specific his. Of course, the political correctness nuts would much prefer that we waste our time on such an effort rather than simply teach everyone correct grammar. They have already proposed that we re-write the Christian Bible to make God gender-neutral.
I am willing to concede that I learned both grammar and arithmetic in the middle of the last century. Since then we have found it neither desirable nor practical to change rules of arithmetic, such as 2 + 3 = 5. But the political correctness nuts would have us embrace a false belief that we can change people's attitudes by changing the rules of grammar.
Of course, if they really want it that way, all you women out their may expose yourselves whenever you want. I'm happy with that. But I am not allowed to expose myself in public. You will probably be happy with that.
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1 comment:
Thanks, The Chief. Point well-taken--your comment is very enlightening.
It's the ambiguity in general English that enables novelists to build conflicts among their characters, and allows poets to impart two or more meanings to one graceful line.
I can see that such ambiguities are detrimental in a courtroom, where the objective is to resolve issues of guilt, innocence and liability. It is understandable that written laws must be specific and unambiguous. Accuracy must displace grace and beauty,lest the guilty escape through the loopholes created by ambiguity.
Plainly, the California Style Manual for legal grammar that you mention is designed to accomplish that, strictly for the sake of accuracy, as opposed to political correctness.
Therefore, I don't believe we can fault Judge Armstrong for attempting to apply the law precisely as it is written. It is also apparent that when a law does not conform to the requirements of the style guide, appellate judges may assume the task of determining the intent of the writer.
Fortunately for all of us, the California Style Manual seems to recommend sensible solutions, and does not resort to "made up" abominations such as "hu" or "s/he."
I still maintain that those who try to destroy the grace and beauty of general english just to be "politically correct" do not serve us well at all.
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