In my day, if a sentence referred to a singularity, the pronouns were he or she/his or hers. Now, everything is "they". This is just bad grammar, if you ask me.
I'm writing an article and when I reference a client, I refer back to her or him, because that's singular, but I'm being corrected to refer back to they. This doesn't make any sense to me. A "they" is a plurality. A person is either male or female, a he or a she, generally speaking.
I don't think I'm old enough to be old-fashioned, but there it is. I am part of the binary gender system, by nature. I think of humanity broadly as men and women. People who don't fit into those categories have political rights; no one should deny that. But in terms of a writer writing to an audience, I'm expecting that the overwhelming majority of readers understand that a singular person is going to be either a he or a she, not a plurality of a human. Sexual orientation and gender identity are irrelevant to grammar.
It's not up to me to stop the English language from evolving, but please, it doesn't have to evolve to be political.
Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie
#PoliticallyIncorrect
#RandomThought
#EnglishGrammar
Very good point! This is my grammarian pet peeve: When referring to a human in a sentence, whether that human is a he or she, do not use 'that' to define that person, use 'who' or 'whom'. For example, "The patient, who is amnestic, suddenly remembered pertinent details of the incident," not "The patient that is amnestic..." A person is not a "that"! That is all...lol! :D
ReplyDeleteOMG, I totally agree with you!!! A person is not a "that".
ReplyDeleteI am like-minded regarding your conception of binary gender system for language. I will say strongly, I have made the same exact judgments, more than likely from my high school scholarship when a good deal of my own syntax instruction took place.
ReplyDeleteNo, it is not old fashioned.💎