Concord failures/noun-pronoun disagreements?‏

A forest path?








Below are my comments sent on February 22 via e-mail to The Editor of The Star's Mind Our English after reading two articles published therein:-

The sentences below are taken from the two articles by GRANT BARRETT in Mind Our English – the first three from The Tell-All of the Century of February 20 and the fourth from The Language of Young People of February 6.

1. To grass someone or to grass someone up means to report them and their
activities to the police.

2. To shop someone to the police means to offer up evidence of their
wrongdoing.

3. Such a person is fronting – pretending to the criminals to be something
they’re not – so that they can lure the criminals into a false sense of
safety.

4. “To bone someone” meaning to have sex with them, which dates to at least as
early as the 1970s, is also on the minds of young people in 2006.

Would you kindly advise whether all the aforesaid four sentences contain concord failures/noun-pronoun disagreements?

The Editor's reply via e-mail dated March 12:-

Fadzilah Amin answers your question(s):

There was a time when English used the masculine pronouns he, him or his to apply to either a man or a woman or to refer to a person whose gender is not known. The reasoning behind this was that “man embraces woman”, and he can mean either he or she. This was later considered sexist, and “he or she”, “him or her” and “his or her” were used by some people. However, it is rather clumsy to use “he or she”, etc. all the time. So the plural they, them and their are often used to mean “he or she”, “him or her” and “his or her.” This singular use of they, them and their is not really new in English. The Oxford English Dictionary, in its second definition of “they” (= ‘he or she’), has among its quotations, one from Lord Chesterfield’s letters (1759): “If a person is born of a …gloomy temper…they cannot help it.” and another from Ruskin (1866): “Now, nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing.”
The singular use of “they” is common after indefinite pronouns like “someone”, “anyone” or “nobody” and after the noun “person”, which does not indicate gender. This is what the four sentences you quoted use, and there is no indefinite pronoun-pronoun or noun-pronoun disagreement involved.

My further comments to The Editor via e-mail dated March 21:-

Thank you for your reply.

Allow me to make further comments hereunder.

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, the singular they is one of the disputed usages. …..

A common inaccuracy is the use of the plural pronoun when the antecedent is a distributive expression such as each, each one, everybody, every one, many a man, which, though implying more than one person, requires the pronoun to be in the singular. Similar to this, but with even less justification, is the use of the plural pronoun with the antecedent anybody, any one, somebody, some one, the intention being either to avoid the awkward he or she, or to avoid committing oneself to either. Some bashful speakers even say, A friend of mine told me that they ..."

In another site http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/16/143616/593

"He" has died and gone to the flames of patriarchal hell. The pronoun "he," I mean. But if we accept that "he" is no longer valid as a singular, genderless pronoun, what alternatives exist?

I propose the oft-chastised singular usage of "they" as the easiest and most effective replacement for the genderless "he." .....

So how can the singular "they" become a respectable alternative? By using it, and announcing its use. People currently use the singular "they" all the time, but either with a sense of shame or unknowingly. However, the singular "they" can become an acceptable term if people begin to use it proudly and with authority.

Language is formed by those who use it. We can no longer afford to live without a genderless pronoun! The mighty "he" has fallen, long live the singular "they!"

Note the use of the sentence in Mind Our English of March 21, “That someone deserves more acclamation for his – or her – invention!”
Meanwhile, perhaps the following can help:-

HOW TO WRITE AND SPEAK BETTER compiled/edited by more than ten experts and published by The Reader's Digest says repeating a word or phrase can have positive advantages, alongside the negative virtue of averting confusion.

A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors
Mary K. McCaskill Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia http://www.sti.nasa.gov/publish/sp7084.pdf
states in Grammar and effective Writing as follows:-

All pronouns must have an antecedent (the noun they replace) with which they agree in number, gender, and person. In addition, some pronouns change form to indicate nominative, objective, and possessive case (for example, he, him, his)……

Grammatical errors involving pronoun antecedents can be avoided very simply: check every pronoun for a clear appropriate antecedent and then ensure agreement between antecedent and pronoun.