How many times have you been scolded by your English teachers or proof-reading friends for using the wrong singular gender-neutral pronoun? It sure happens to me often. Actually, I'm pretty sure that this gramatical error is one of my most frequent errors. Not sure what I'm talking about? Here's an example:
There exists an individual whose left arm is longer than their right arm.
The use of the word their is grammatically incorrect in this sentence... Nowadays, their is used as the plural gender-neutral pronoun, and is not acceptable for the singular case. The correct version would be:
There exists an individual whose left arm is longer than his or
her right arm.
Why should I have to use three words - his or her - in place of one simple word - their? Does this make sense to you?
It turns out that this change was made by a law passed by British Parliament in the mid 1800s stating that "...words importing the male gender shall be deemed and taken to include females." This allowed the british government to throw the word He around in the drafting of new laws. I guess they conveniently forgot about this law when women weren't given the right to vote until decades later.
So now, I have to get red marks all over my technical writing assignments because some government in England in the 1800s decided that they wanted to run a male dominated society? That's silly. That's just down-right ridiculous. How come people haven't realized this and reverted back to the old ways? Especially now that gender equality and political correctness are so important to everyone.
For more info, check out: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=330
I want my singular gender-neutral pronoun back!
Thursday, January 19, 2006
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