Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Friday, April 10, 2009

Do We Need A God-Specific Pronoun? Pt.2

The way I look at it, "he", "she" "God" - one syllable all around. No time savings on the substitution. What's the point?

Okay, I do use He (usually with capital H) if I'm articulating a particular perspective on God from the standpoint of a group or belief system that would use the He. I always thought the ye olde capitalized pronoun shtick was kind of funny and pompous - I mean, come on: "We reverence the Lord by making his 'he' a He!" He he indeed, pretty silly. But when you're depicting that attitude, perfect! I've also used She when articulating that particular perspective. Which can be pretty funny itself. Reference to God as He or She is equally as funny and pompous, albeit for not quite similar reasons.

But to me, whenever I'm articulating my own perspective (like that ever happens) I find it's not really ever necessary to Pronoun the ever-beloved deity. To me, if I'm really going to make extra steps or take extra measures to show respect to God, when I'm talking about God, then I'm going to call God God. Certainly God is a more impressive designation than some big-letter pronoun! I call a spade a spade, not an "it." I call God God.

No sense pussyfooting around with abbreviations of equal length. It's like, what's Jack short for? Oh, John. Well heck. There's a real time-saver.

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