I remember the exact moment I became aware of our use of prepositions in conversation. It was at the Sue Duncan Children’s Center, one of my first years of teaching, and we were gathered in the circle referred to as “group,” when Sue would lecture the older kids on whatever general knowledge topics she found interesting or useful that day. Someone said something along the lines of, “She’s the one that–” when Sue, a former English teacher and staunch grammarian, abruptly cut them off and declared, “A person is a who not a that. Try again.”

Since then, I have carefully moderated my own use of prepositions. At first I was surprised by how often I made the same mistake. Eventually I became aware of the prevalence of this mistake in media and popular culture. Every TV show, every commercial, they’re all making this mistake. “I’m the one that…” “He’s the one that…” Given the prevalence, it’s only natural that the mistake should seep into everyone’s spoken grammar, whether or not they’re aware of the shift.

This phrase has broader implications than a simple grammar mistake. As Sue clarified, the preposition “who” refers to a person; “that” refers to an object. By using “that” in conjunction with people, we are equating them with objects. They become denuded of their personhood, their humanity. Our very language has shifted to express a commodification we are perhaps not even aware of yet. Though we complain of how squeezed the middle class is, of the negative effects of the unsupervised free market, we have altered the way we speak to reflect that reality. Unconsciously, our speech signals an awareness of our role of commodities, of the realization of Marxist philosophy.