Q Toon: They're Thee/Thou

So now the search for Pope Francis’s successor begins.

It’s a highly secretive process. On May 7, some 120 cardinals from around the world will hole up in the Sistine Chapel, lock the doors, and nobody is allowed in. Not even the pizza delivery guy (although there happens to be a Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. He will be allowed inside.)

Any cardinal divulging to the public what goes on within the conclave faces being stripped of his position, excommunicated, and exiled to the Land of Nod.

The cardinals vote by handwritten ballots, and are actually supposed to disguise their handwriting. One imagines that they write upside down, or with their non-dominant hand, or with their eyes closed.

And if that weren’t secretive enough, the ballots are burned in a special chimney. No recounts allowed.

At the end of the process, a senior cardinal deacon will step out onto the balcony of the Basilica of St. Peter and announce "Habemus Papam!" Opening the sealed envelope from the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse Coopers, he will then tell everyone that the new Pope is "La La Land." 

And nobody will be able to contradict him.

Because, you know, of that excommunication to the Land of Nod thing.

This Week's Sneak Peek

This week's cartoon co-stars someone whom I haven't drawn in a while, and it's not this guy.

That's all I'm going to say about that for now.

Moving on: I've edited a cartoon and blog post from a couple weeks ago to correct an error on my part. An editor questioned my syndicate editors about the name I mistakenly gave Nex Benedict, the Oklahoma teenager who died shortly after other students beat them up in a school lavatory. Somewhere in the process of erasing and rewriting text, I had changed Nex to Dex.

When the question was passed along to me, it came with the suggestion that perhaps I was trying to depict the cluelessness of the politicians talking in the cartoon, or their awkwardness in using Nex's pronouns of choice. 

At first, I thought the editors were confused by the use of they/them pronouns referring to Nex where someone could think the pronouns referred back to "those students." Most of my erasing and rewriting of dialogue had been in effort to steer clear of they/them confusion.

After a few email exchanges, I realized where I had been in error, so I corrected the cartoon and sent replacement files to Q Syndicate in case any client papers are still interested in it now that an official cause of death has been declared.

I apologize to all concerned for my mistake. 

Q Toon: So They/Them Say

I can be a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to English grammar. The growing use of apostrophes before the "s" in plural nouns sets my teeth on edge. I insist that "literally" literally means "literally," lest it mean nothing at all. And "the media" ain't singular. ("The opera," however, is, unless you're discussing someone's entire body of work.)

I am willing to yield somewhat to the people who want to be referred to in the third person as "they" or "them," but I often find it confusing. Is they or aren't they? Should the reflexive pronoun be "themselves" or "themself"? Or do they truly contain multitudes?

The Week magazine (February 10 issue) had an interesting review of the latest album by nonbinary recording artist Sam Smith. Throughout the entire article weighing in at over 160 words, whoever wrote it carefully avoided referring to them with any third-person pronouns even once.

So that's one way of dealing with it. 

Spoken language is not static but dynamic. If you don't believe that, try listening to a conversation among the Amish. Or go read some Shakespeare (who is known to have employed they/them pronouns on some singular occasions, by the way).

Still, it would be helpful if nonbinary people weren't leaving the entire onus (or onera) of remembering how many people they are on the rest of us. Meet us halfway, all right?

Would it have ruined Smith's album if their opening song were "Love Us More"?