Language & Grammar discussion

I'm so confused about this. My English teacher said that everyone's still debating whether or not to use "they" as a pronoun when the gender is uncertain, but I always feel weird writing it because "their" signifies that there's more than one person you're talking about. "His/her" is too awkward.

Here's an example:

"This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, they have to take their situation into their own hands."

As opposed to

"This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, he/she has to take his/her situation into his/her own hands."


How do you guys usually deal with this type of sentence?

'They' and 'their' He/she or his/hers is also correct, but is considered, in some places, awkward.

Am I wrong? NE? Ruth? Debs?

Consider:

This book shows that if people want to live life to the fullest, they have to take their situations into their own hands.

Or

This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, one has to take one's situation into one's own hands.

The second is awkward, but "one" is usually an awkward pronoun to begin with.

It used to be that "he or she" followed singular indefinite pronouns. That rule is losing (or maybe has lost) the battle. Thus, the ubiquitous they. Life (and grammar rules) changes....

Wouldn't like to be living in the era of William Shakespeare; what's the language going to be like when we're gone?

Ali wrote: "This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, they have to take their situation into their own hands."

I think that if one starts to refer to somebody as "one", one is wrong to go on to refer to these same people as "I" or "they". Having plumped for "one", one is unfortunately stuck with it.

Hence: "This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, one must take one's situation into one's own hands."

However, I don't much like "one" as a pronoun; nor do I like "he or she"; and "he/she" is dreadful. So it looks as if we are stuck with "they". What is really required is a gender-neutral but not neuter pronoun. What about a competition to find one?

Heh, this is one problem that Finnish writers don't have... Gender-neutral language <3

You could use one for both parts of the sentence - which is awkward. I personally see nothing wrong with they or their which is gender neutral. Aren't we taking this a bit too far?

Nah, just good old fashion discourse.

This book shows that if you want to live life to the fullest, you have to take your situation into your own hands.

Lisa wrote: "You could use one for both parts of the sentence - which is awkward. I personally see nothing wrong with they or their which is gender neutral. Aren't we taking this a bit too far?"

The problem with "their" is that you're talking about a single person, but "their" insinuates that you're talking about more than one person. I personally think it's a bit awkward too, and some people don't think its grammatically correct.

Ruth wrote: "This book shows that if you want to live life to the fullest, you have to take your situation into your own hands."

That sounds the best... but for an essay where teachers don't allow you to write "you" or "I", I don't think that could work :)

Anthony D wrote: "Ali wrote: "This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, they have to take their situation into their own hands."

I think that if one starts to refer to somebody as "one", one i..."

Unfortunately I don't think there is such a word in the English dictionary :( I think people are working on it though! A teacher I once had said that there was a student who wrote a thesis about it...

Swedes have started using "hen" instead of 'han' or 'hon'. I am not sure how common it is.

Yes, we need a new pronoun that can be used more correctly to mean either male or female. In the meantime, though, since we used "he" and "him" no matter what gender we were talking about for so very long, failing to consider the female gender, I vote that we start using "she" and "her" for everything for awhile (as in for a very long time, just to make things even).

I use "he" and "she" interchangeably. It's my 50% solution.

That said, I refuse to write "womankind" or "chairwoman" or "stateswoman." Good grief.

Ali wrote: "Unfortunately I don't think there is such a word in the English dictionary"

I fear that people do use it and I suspect it exists in the dictionary. Inevitably, Fowler discusses it in one of his articles. It's the equivalent to the German "man", as in "Man ist was er isst" (Feuerbach). In English, I always thought it sounded a bit affected, and I try to avoid it, but I find myself using it, nevertheless. I never use it to replace the first person, however.

I sometimes use Newengland's strategy, but I don't much like that either.

Ali wrote: "Ruth wrote: "This book shows that if you want to live life to the fullest, you have to take your situation into your own hands."

That sounds the best... but for an essay where teachers don't allow..."

This book shows that if people want to live life to the fullest, they have to take their situation into their own hands.

Although forbidding the use of "you" seems nonsense to me.

Donna wrote: "Yes, we need a new pronoun that can be used more correctly to mean either male or female.."
As far as I know that has been "it"; but yes you are right - or not: usin 'they' could mean you have combined the two.

Ali, what part of the world are you in?

The reason I ask is that in British English, singular they/their has been commonly accepted in most circumstances for a long time, whereas in American and maybe some other Englishes, it's often regarded as non-standard or worse.

Singular they/there has a long history of being used by great writers as well as colloquially, but if you want to avoid it, it's usually possible to do so, such as by making the subject plural. For example, in your first sentence (which sounds awkward even to my BrE eyes):
"This book shows that if one wants to live life to the fullest, they have to take their situation into their own hands."
you could change it to:
"This book shows that those who want to live life to the fullest, have to take their situation into their own hands."

I live in America, and I never knew that authors used they/their as a singular pronoun... very interesting.
I like how you changed the sentence. Thank you for the great advice!

A bit of background: having read around the subject quite widely, it seems undisputed that the prohibition on singular they/their was first documented, and probably invented by Anne Fisher, an 18th-century British schoolmistress who wrote a grammar book that became very popular. There is nothing wrong with that except that it didn’t reflect even educated usage at the time, before or since. It was personal preference, not a grammatical rule. Chaucer, Austen, Byron, Thackeray, Eliot, Trollope, Dickens and many others have used it routinely. I presume they did so because it was (and is) useful, widely used and unambiguous. In fact it’s so common, I expect that those who abhor it must find it very distracting reading anything other than a few newspapers that have very rigid style guides, and I wonder if American publications remove it, in the same way they change "centre" to "center" and "pavement" to "sidewalk". (The PC/feminist angle is a red herring. It’s not like chairman/chairperson, but a longstanding and useful form.)

I think the only thing to worry about is whether verbs agree, e.g. avoiding “The jury was [singular] out for three hours, before they [plural] reached their verdict”.

If “you” and “your” can be singular or plural, why the objections to “they” and “their”?

Most intriguingly, why are BrE speakers generally more relaxed about it than AmE speakers, even though it was a Brit that caused the problem and Fowler partially supports her?

Wow! Again, thank you for your insight!