Choose Happy

Maddie had a little extra time at school as things are slowly building up for the school year, so she was spending some time, relaxing and coloring in this nice sheet of paper here.  It turned out well!  It's kind of funny in a way, because she's a senior and all, and here we are, hanging up her artwork on the refrigerator. Which reminds me of that old joke from Steven Wright:

"One time I went to a museum where all the work in the museum had been done by children. They had all the paintings up on refrigerators."

Anyway, it's a nice little message for the day:  Choose Happy.  Tonight, we chose happy by watching "Toy Story 2," which is just an amazing movie.  These first three Toy Story movies are so good and bring such happiness and laughter.  

Speaking of laughter, this afternoon at work, we were taking a break and fiddling with that automatic song generator.  We plugged in some gibberish lyrics (boo-doo-boo-doo, arrrr, duuuuuuh, and so on), and then we used the prompt for an operatic style song.  What AI came up with was hysterical, so I sort of made it into a sing-along with this short video here:

It was a fun day.  Maddie had taekwondo tonight, her leadership class, and of course the class where she's helping out as an instructor's assistant.  She's enjoying that.  She didn't have any homework today, but it was a good day today.  She's looking forward to Camp FCY, which is coming soon.

Tonight we read from our "ROTJ" book of short stories, and I kept thinking there was bad grammar in this one story.  And in fact, it is bad grammar.  It's a story with the heroes Wedge and Janson, who of course were famously in the same snowspeeder during the events of "The Empire Strikes Back."  Wedge became such a popular character that we see him years later in "Rise of Skywalker," but back to this short story.  It features a character that the author kept saying "they" did this, or an object belonged to "them." 

So this is science fiction, and I kept thinking, "Is this some sort of two-headed alien?"  Why is this character a "them"?  Then it hit me.  I realized this whole pronoun thing was going on, and that there are people currently who want to be referred to as "them."  This may be great and fine for you if you want me to think you're more than one person.  Because currently, the definition of "them" is - and this is just my own definition: "more than one of him or her."  See, it's plural.  That's why it was confusing to the reader.  The word "them" has had a clear definition for many, many years.

For example, here's an old movie from 1954 about a lot of giant-sized ants.  It's called "Them," because it features more than one giant killer ant.  It might not be as interesting a movie if there was only one giant ant.  In that case, it might be called "That!"  And the whole tag line about killing one giant ant only to have another replacing it would be sort of moot.  Anyway, I read that title and I think to myself, "Oh my.  There must be a lot of giant ants.  Them could be trouble!"  Yes, that's more bad grammar.  So the question is, how much giant ant spray does the army get?  Well, obviously enough for more than one ant, of course.  Because the title tells me we've got trouble with "them" and not "it."

Them is plural, otherwise the movie might be called "It," which is a completely different horror movie.  "It" would be a movie title used later on about a killer clown thing that likes sewers.  I know from that title  "It" that there is only one killer clown in that movie.  See, Pennywise the killer clown was wise enough to go with the title "It" rather than "Them." This is because he is a thoughtful killer clown, and he knew it would cause confusion to call himself "Them."  See, readers and viewers might think there were more than one killer clown out there, and that of course would be really scary.

The point is, plural pronouns are called that because the adjective in front sort of sums it up:  plural.  Which again is more than one.  Our short story tonight featured brave Rebel pilots before the battle against the Death Star.  I look at one rebel pilot, and thanks to old Sesame Street episodes, I think "Hey that's one rebel pilot."  And sure enough, if we were all in preschool with the Count sitting there looking and seeing only one rebel pilot, he'd say, "One!  One rebel pilot.  Ah, ah, ah!"  He'd be excited about this, because math is a big deal to him.

And the pilot would smile and agree, hopefully.  Because there are kids there, and the Count is amazing.  Unless we've changed math too.  But anyway, then we get to the pronoun thing, and there's this "they" and "them" bit.  The pilot is described as a they or them.

At this point the Count would be looking over at me, completely confused.  And I'd look back at the Count and shrug to say, "I have no idea what this rebel pilot is talking about either."  So the pilot explains how they identify as a "they."  And we would all look at this one rebel pilot there with perplexed expressions.  The Count tentatively walks up to the rebel pilot and looks into her eyes, pauses, and says, "Is there more than one of you in there?"

Which would be funny, at least to me.  Unless of course you remember someone in the Bible who called himself Legion, because "he was many."  In fact, that possessed guy may have been the first one to identify himself (or themselves) with plural pronouns.  This of course isn't the greatest precedent to follow.  

All I'm saying is do better, folks.  If you're so insistent and creative, maybe come up with a new made-up pronoun word that isn't already taken?  I don't know.  Good luck to you.  Because if you keep saying  there's more than one of you - which is what "they" and "them" both mean - then I'll keep thinking there's more than one of you.  And I'm fairly certain the Count and I agree about on that.  Or them.

Sorry about the ramble.  Not really.  I had fun remembering the giant ant movie.  I never wanted to see it because I thought it was too scary.  It still gives me the heebie jeebies!  As for the short story, it has been okay.  Maddie is ready to do the next short story.  Only a few of these left and we're good to go on this book, being the completists that we are.  There have been some fun stories in here.  They (plural pronoun) have been not as numerous in this book though.  It's okay.

Anyway, we said our prayers, and we went and got some sleep afterwards, choosing joy, and counting all our blessings, quite thankful for them (plural noun).