Lazovich, T. et al
Adhering to a person’s preferred pronouns is an important part of today’s social and academic climate. Attempting to ride this new wave of awareness, notoriously self-centred professor Dr. Bill Baskin recently made an unprecedented choice, announcing that henceforth, the professor’s new pronouns are “I/me/my.” This stunning lack of self-awareness has reverberated through the scientific community, leaving most people scratching their heads and trying to figure out the grammatical implications.
“I am the most important person I know. I will not be reduced to a third person pronoun by others,” said Dr. Baskin regarding the decision. The professor later banished everyone from my* office when it was pointed out to me* that a writer using first person pronouns to describe me* would just lead to editorial confusion. Dr. Baskin also refuses to acknowledge any students’ pronoun choices, instead referring to them all as “peon”.
*Editor’s note: Wow this is really difficult. Going forward we have chosen to refer to Prof. Baskin as “them” to emphasize the fact that while we make absolutely no judgment about what third person pronoun a person chooses, trying to get people to refer to you via a first person pronoun is both incredibly confusing and editorially unsound.
“I’m not really sure how this would work,” said grammar expert Riley Tompkins. “Let’s say I was a witness in court and I was trying to refer to this person. Would I say ‘I stabbed the victim ten times?’ to say that I saw this guy stab the victim ten times?” she asked, flustered. “It’s just–.”
Tompkins then went silent, her eyes rapidly scanning the air in an apparent recreation of the “confused math lady” meme.
Dr. Baskin’s graduate students had a different take on the situation. A student who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals said, “I am not surprised. This is the person who has a large self-portrait hanging in the office. I’ve been in this lab for eight years and Dr. Baskin is the sole author on all my papers.”
“And when I say ‘my’ I mean me, not Dr. Baskin. And when I say ‘I,’ I mean ‘me,’ like-“
The student then went silent, their eyes rapidly scanning the air in an apparent recreation of the “confused math lady” meme.
The Dean of the College of Science declined to comment for this story, simply stating that tenured professors can do whatever the ever loving fuck they want.
