Columbia University professor of linguistics and social commentator John McWhorter says that although there will always be residual elements, the "era is over in terms of the worst of the woke left."

Speaking to the New York Post on Thursday to promote his new book "Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words," McWhorter touched on the pronoun fad that reached its apex during the Biden administration and encapsulated much of what drove America away from those on the political left.

The columnist for The New York Times said the pronoun craze was simply the latest form of virtue signaling from Americans to let everyone know they were down with the latest thing. "That has become a way of quietly indicating that you are a certain kind of enlightened person," McWhorter said.

The use of pronouns in an email signature or social media account was something that McWhorter would never do, noting that even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has removed them from her X bio. "It was showing that the major high wokeness of 2020-2021 is on the ropes, he said, adding, "An era is over in terms of the worst of the woke left. That's a kind of person and ideology that will always be with us in some way, and I think it should be, but there's an extreme that I think will pass."

Despite his critique of the woke left, McWhorter gives them credit for pushing society into uncharted waters. "We need voices from the hard left to expand our sense of what's possible, to expand our sense of what should be possible, or what we might be thinking about," he said but concluded with a word of caution.

"That's how new ideas get out. What was inappropriate was that kind of person standing up at the table and insisting everybody go their way on the pain of being embarrassed in public and losing their job. That was not the way a mature society operates. But no, I'm all for the hard left being one of our voices, as long as the hard left listens to everybody else, just like everybody else listens to them."

McWhorter's sentiments on pronouns and the release of his book coincide with one of the first executive orders issued by President Donald Trump declaring that the government "remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages" promoting gender ideology. The administration's pushback against pronouns has reached such an extent that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said she won't acknowledge any reporter who uses them in an email signature.

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