08-26-2014, 12:27 PM
mrlynn wrote:
[quote=Eustace]
(Extra points if a bewildered participant scratches their head, and asks themselves: "Have I just been insulted?")
Can we expand word usage to include grammatical faux pas?
'Their' is the plural possessive, and 'themselves' is plural. The referent must therefore be plural. 'A bewildered participant' is not. The neutral possessive pronoun in English is 'his'.
Some languages have a neutral pronoun (we do too, namely 'it', but it's gauche to use that of people). Perhaps we need one, to stem the misuse of plurals.
/Mr Lynn
"Themselves" is an acceptable recent gender-neutral substitute for "His" or "Hers", singular or plural.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
I've actually been deliberately introducing the term into my writing; Fowler would be appalled.
(In this specific case, "his" wouldn't have been of "he" origin. (I have yet to get an answer back on that "Classical Order" question.))
Good catch nonetheless, but I prefer to keep the concept word-centered for now.
This may appear arrogant.
Some may even accuse me of being a wordist, and not paying nearly enough attention to my colons, or indeed even going as far as trying to deliberately split infinitives, no matter the hurt feelings.
I tend to shrug such issues off; people will believe what they want to believe, yet...
Of course I'm a wordist. Maybe not enough for some, and yet for others: the closet wordists, those for whom "Wordism" is the word that must not be named, it would be best if I just kept my damn mouth, um, keyboard, shut.
Word.
Eustace
( Easter Egg- "wordism" has some conflicting definitions, because Somebody of Authority has yet to render judgement. One common definition is the insistence on having the last word.)