"The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran is the very best introduction around to what the Koran actually says [and] how political correctness has made it almost impossible to discuss the Koran and other sacred Muslim texts candidly"

Dear Robert,

I just left Amazon! I wanted to buy the book. I registered in with my name & password as required, clicked the book and nothing happened! The machine isn't working! No place to stick the money in or VISA card!
I'll let my friend but it, & I'll steal it from him!...

Errata Sheet:

For "it is also a helpful handbook for anyone who finds themselves"

Read "it is also a helpful handbook for anyone who finds himself"

He always meant, in the good old days, he and she. And himselfalways meant, in the same kind of usage, both himself and herself. It was an old and useful convention. It should not have been abandoned for the sake of a phony (because completely unnecessary) "inclusion." The abandonment of that convention has been solecism upon solecism, as above, or the clumsiness, the awfulness, of having everywhere to insert "he or she" or "her or him" or "himself or herself." Basta. It's idiotic.

Mr. Spencer.

Congratulations on your new book. And thanks for all your effort for educating the others on Jihad in all its shapes and forms.

Robert, I'm looking forward to reading your new book and will request that my local library buy a copy. I need to get "up to speed" on the Qur'an and will appreciate having facts at my fingertips.

Maybe you've discussed this before, but why did you decide on the spelling "Koran" in the title?

I hope Mr. Spencer pointed this out .

And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allāh) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allāh (Alone). But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zālimûn (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.) (Al-Baqarah 2:193)

O you who believe! Spend of that with which We have provided for you, before a Day comes when there will be no bargaining, nor friendship, nor intercession. And it is the ]disbelievers who are the Zālimûn (wrong-doers, etc.). (Al-Baqarah 2:254)

[url=http://transliteration.org/quran/WebSite_CD/MixNoble/Fram2E.htm]Quraan Transliteration[/url]

Many shes of my acquaintance, beginning but not ending with my mother, have never been the least bit offended by the "he" -- when used in the generic (mankind) sense -- as offensive; such useful conventions are understood, accepted, and not worried about as psychic barriers to inclusion. Autres temps, autres moeurs, I suppose, but I find a relaxed acceptance of this, especially nowadays, attractive. What would Jane Austen, or George Eliot, say?

Jane Austen and George Eliot, especially the former, would be on your side, Hugh. Both of these authors could zing men far more effectivley with their prose than by dithering over which pronoun was or was not appropriate.

It's idiotic.

Absolutely!

Not only that, but it makes little idiots of little girls and little boys, which in many cases lasts for the rest of their life.

Accepting that, PC imposed, "improvement" of language is almost as stupid as accepting "gay" for homosexual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnHv7NGWb0k

The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran is the very best introduction around to what the Koran actually says

Introduction? Introduction? Wouldn't this be, like, the best book of all on the worst book of all? Ms. Shaidle needs to understand that Islam just ain't that deep.

What Mohammed did was make a mountain out of a mole hill. Or maybe a better metaphor would be that he made a vast global network of suppurated sores out of a single shanker, that'd be more like it.

*** 70:28 ***

Who we supposed to read then, Lewis?

I'm hoping to direct some of your attention to my argument for continuing toward a gender-neutral English grammar here.

I always refer to my bride as Herself .

Yeah, but who's manning the phones?

; )

While I haven't yet read Robert's new book on the Quran, the most informative review that I've read thus far is this one from the Conservative Book Club:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/09/at-last-a-readable-and-honest-guide-to-the-book-that-inspires-terrorists-worldwide-the-koran.html

This review provides an extensive list of the contents.

Regarding the above debate over grammar, advocates of "himself" as gender-neutral ought to consider these humorous examples:

"Was it your father or your mother who broke his leg on a ski trip?"

"Either the husband or the wife has perjured himself."

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001362.html

The English language does not currently have gender-neutral terms for the above examples. To my mind, "themself," though awkward, would at least be more sensible than "himself" in cases like the latter. "Their" would be preferable to "his" in the former case.

Shaidle (or an editor) wrote: "...[Spencer's new book] is also a helpful handbook for anyone who finds themselves caught up in religious and political arguments on a regular basis."

The semantic error in the above quote involves an error of quantity. "Anyone" has to be followed by a singular term like "themself," or "himself," or "herself," or the ugly but logical "himself/herself." To use "themselves," the author could have preceded it with "those who" instead of "anyone who."

Here is what the Compact Oxford dictionary states:

"themself
• pronoun third person sing. informal used instead of ‘himself’ or ‘herself’ to refer to a person of unspecified sex.
— USAGE The standard reflexive form corresponding to they and them is themselves, as in they can do it themselves. The singular form themself, first recorded in the 14th century, has re-emerged in recent years to correspond to the singular gender-neutral use of they, as in this is the first step in helping someone to help themself. It is not generally accepted as good English, however."

"Themself" seems to me to be better than the alternatives.

OT, adding to the discussion of pronouns and gender.

The majority of Aboriginal Australian languages have a completely neutral third-person singular and third-person-plural pronoun.

For example: in the Gubbi Gubbi language that was once spoken in a part of Queensland, the pronoun 'ngunda' means either 'he' or 'she' or 'it', according to context; and 'djanabu' means 'they' (whether female or male or neuter).

Having studied (not formally) a few of these languages, I have to say, it takes a little while for someone used to English, to get used to the fact that you only need the one pronoun to refer to a man or to a woman.

Just for fun, in order to get an idea of just how differently different languages can 'map' the social world:

this is what Eastern Arrernte offers as three possible ways to say 'we-more-than-two'.

'anwantherre' means 'we more than two, who are from different moieties [e.g. I, my brothers and sisters and our mum]'.

'anwakerre' - 'we more than two, all from same moiety but different generation levels [e.g. my brothers and sisters, I and our father]'

'anwerne' - 'we more than two, same moiety, same generation level [e.g. I and my brothers and sisters]' (Under the influence of English this form is coming to be used by young Arrernte people as a general first-person-plural without reference to whether the people described are related or not).