The Island of Doubt

I had a little fun yesterday -- at my own expense -- by writing what a few commenters correctly identified as an attempt to generate traffic on this blog. The subject was the use of the term "woman president," which I actually do think is poor English, but my motivation wasn't convincing anyone stop using it.

It all began over the weekend, when I heard the term on a BBC news broadcast and a day later on NPR. As a former copy editor who had come across the use of "woman" as an adjective before, it continues to grate on my nerves, and I'm not the only one. Not because it's wrong, but just because it's awkward and unnecessary, and inconsistent with everyone's refusal to use its logical corollary, "male president."

Anyway, I had been thinking a lot lately about the level of traffic on my blog, and I recalled that the Island of Doubt -- and many other blogs here -- tend to get lots of traffic whenever we post about any of several subjects that are only tangentially related, if at all, to science. Just about any post on atheism, for example, is good way to generate visits.

And it further occurred to me that writing about proper usage of the English language would be another sure-fire way to attract readers. I said to my wife, "I bet if I write something about 'woman president' I'd get all kinds of hits." After all, there really is no authority when it comes to what's proper English. It all boils down to what's popular. So everyone can be an expert. In this way, usage disputes are the polar opposite of science, where one really needs to know a field in some depth before evaluating an argument.

And I was right. Traffic was high though not record-breaking. But my comments section was much, much busier than normal. Many people pointed out, correctly, that "woman" has been used as an adjective for centuries. Other tried to equate the compound nouns we all use with adjective-noun complexes, and on and on. Some of the language was quite nasty.

Take it easy, folks. Who really cares? It's not like this is a subject of some gravitas, like the teaching of creationism in public schools or climate change mitigation. I certainly don't care all that much. Sure, I hate the term "woman president," but so what? Instead of just dismissing my opinion and moving on to something more important, people actually bothered to look up websites and dictionary references and fire back at me.

So, thanks for reading, but get a life.

From now on, however, I shall take the suggestion of commenter "Sparky" to heart: "Stick to science, dude."