Showing posts with label pronoun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pronoun. Show all posts

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Politically Correct, Grammatically Incorrect

Once again, the pronoun-antecedent agreement problem plagues a newscaster's post. The pronoun "their" is plural and has as its antecedent the word "parent." "Parent" is singular. The most logical way to correct this error is to use his/her instead of "their." The grammatically correct way is to use his. 

Wednesday, May 21, 2008


There is a pronoun/antecedent agreement problem in this advertisement for Huntington Learning Center. (How ironic!) "Help your child get into the college of their dreams!" is wrong because "your child" is singular and "their" is plural. This could be corrected by changing "their" to "his or her."
I realize that it is obnoxious to say his/her rather than their. It is my humble opinion that eventually it will be acceptable to use their as a singular and plural, just as you can be singular or plural. I probably won't live long enough to see it, though.