Word: pronouns
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...death approached, Grant wrote a note to his physician that contained a subtle and accurate conceit: "The fact is that I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; or to % suffer. I signify all three." What Grant said about his dying was true of his life. It was only as a verb, that is, as a warrior, that he found focus. Grant had an animal sense of moment and motion. Mary Lincoln thought for a time during the siege of Richmond that Grant was a mere "butcher...
...irate hunter is art? Well, yeah, when the duck is Daffy and the hunter is the dully malevolent Elmer Fudd. In Rabbit Seasoning (1952), Daffy and Bugs are out to convince Elmer that the other is the legally blastable species. In the midst of an argument, Daffy encounters some pronoun trouble and tells Elmer, "I demand that you shoot me now!" Daffy turns to Bugs, sticks his tongue out in "nyah" fashion and promptly gets both barrels of Elmer's shotgun. When the smoke clears, Daffy's beak is arranged around his left ear, with the tongue still protruding. Daffy...
Take for example, one of our government's favorite nouns, the word "this." Never meant to be a noun and defined as an indefinite pronoun at best, the word "this" is used by the Administration to avoid naming anything they'd rather not discuss. Reading the morning paper on the day after any press conference, one is sure to find the President commenting, "I have nothing to say on this," or (when he is disposed to talk) "Let me say this on that," if he is referring to something like Grenada, Lebanon, Nicaragua, or the Russians walking out of negotiations...
...first-person pronoun I is a basic starting point: ego, je, ich, io, ya. In Japanese, where nothing is that simple, the word has two dozen or more forms, depending on who is talking, and to whom, and the social relationship between them. An elderly man might refer to himself as washi, but his wife would say watashi, or, for that matter, atakushi, or atashi; their daughter might say atai and their son boku. Then there is temae, which means both you and I. But the Japanese often evade these social difficulties by dropping all pronouns entirely...
...outcome in the 468 House and Senate races will depend on the President's success in Greatly Communicating his version of economic history to the recession-weary voters. Not only Go Democrats who criticize his program for recovery have no better ideas, but "they" rapidly becoming the First Pronoun are responsible for the nearly four decades of postwar economic blundering that got us into this mess in the first place...