Anyone who hates incorrect pronoun reference should tear their hair out!

[srothschild]

Ack! I know the phrase "his or her" is awkward, but "their" is plural and should never be used to refer to a singular word like anyone. The same applies to everybody, anybody, each, neither, nobody, someone, a person, the girl, Joe, Bob, Fred, etc. Grrr

Comments

[blakdove]

Narg, yes. The other one I can't stand is "I couldn't breath." Well, there are many I can't stand.

[lemon_says]

Those are the same people who "loose" their minds.

[blakdove]

Loosers.

[lemon_says]

People always try to avoid using the universal "he," thinking that it's better to be non-sex-specific. That drives me nuts.

[srothschild]

If people just put a modicum of thought into their writing, they would be able to forgo "he" and not automatically disregard 50% of their audience.

I wish there was a gender neutral singular pronoun. Of course, then English would start to look like Esperanto or Newspeak...