They win
By Dixie Darr
"If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe
would be an apostrophe with fur." Doug Larson
I give up. For years I’ve tried to teach my students that a pronoun must agree in number with its antecedent and have seen the blank look in their eyes, indicating that they don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
Example: A student should bring their books to class. What’s wrong with this sentence? Simple. Student (the noun antecedent) is singular: one student. The pronoun, their, is plural. Here are two ways to correct this sentence:
1. Students should bring their books to class. (Both plural)
2. A student should bring his or her books to class (Both singular)
In writing, these mistakes are easy to correct. In talking, they’re not. We start saying “A student” then run into the admittedly awkward construction of “his or her books.” We had it easier back in the last century when I learned this stuff from Mrs. Clayton in the sixth grade. We said, “a student should bring his books to class.” It didn’t matter if the student was male or female; the masculine pronoun was said to include the feminine.
Then along came the women’s movement and shook everything up. People did studies that demonstrated that the masculine pronoun referred to males, not both sexes, and we started having to use both pronouns when the gender was unknown. It was politically correct, but nobody really liked it. Gradually, we started substituting the plural, gender-neutral pronouns when we talked and that spilled over into writing. Now, the only people who know the difference are English teachers.
I found a nice little tutorial at SoYouWanna.com which I show to my students and they say they understand, but continue to misuse pronouns in their papers. I can see the writing on the wall. This is now standard usage. At faculty meetings, I’ve been asking other teachers if it isn’t time to capitulate and accept it as okay in student papers. “No,” they say firmly. “Hold your ground.” “The language is dynamic,” I point out. “Just because a rule worked thirty years ago doesn’t mean it works today.” They remain unswayed.
This week I read two of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott and Richard Bolles, and they BOTH used they to refer to a singular noun. So, I give up. I accept the new construction. I don’t care if it sounds wrong to those of us who learned it the “right” way; it’s handy, useful and almost universal. They win.
9:36:14 AM 
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