River Monsters star Jeremy Wade has come up with the perfect response after Sam Smith called for a gender-neutral term for the word fisherman.
Appearing on The One Show by BBC, the 30-year-old singer and Grammy winner, who identifies as non-binary, admitted they love fishing as they suggested they could end their days fishing somewhere by the bank.
Correcting host Ronan Keating, who asked Sam if they would like to be fisherman, the singer said: “Fisher-them. I love fishing! Yes, I do! Yeah I’d love to be a fisher-them.”
They continued: “I’d be any type of fisher-them. I think I would like to, one day, I’d just like to end my days fishing. Like sitting on a bank.”
Since Smith’s controversial proposal of a new term to replace the gender-specific word fisherman, thousands of people have called the singer out on social media and blasted the idea as ridiculous.
Jeremy Wade of the ITV show River monsters, however, seems to partially agree with Smith.
In a statement to MailOnline, the fisherman admitted that fishing is expanding and becoming more popular among non-males.
“Unfortunately ‘fishermen’ does reflect the current reality, but things are changing and I’m all for that changing more,” he said. “It’s great to know that Sam is one of our increasingly diverse number.”
He went on to suggest the use of the “inclusive, non-clunky” term angler as he insisted he would “like to see” more of it in everyday use.
“Angler as a term trips off the tongue and is familiar to a lot of people. It’s anybody who fishes with an angle — the old-fashioned name for a hook,” Jeremy continued.
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