everybody...their

[Baker, John]

        I often see or hear "their" even when the antecedent is indisputably
singular.  I'm not so sure, however, that "everybody" is really singular.
Would you say "Everybody came to the conference, but he left"?

John Baker


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Farruggio [SMTP:pfarr at UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 12:09 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      everybody...their
>
> What about this one?  I have noticed during the past 20-25 years that the
> use of "Everybody (everyone, each, somebody, etc...) has THEIR own way of
> doing things" has steadily been replacing  "Everybody (etc)....HIS  own
> etc" even in "learned discourse"  I attribute this to the influence of the
> women's movement in making America more aware and sensitive to sexism in
> society in general and in the English language in particular.  I have
> tried to use "his/her" (clumsy as it is) as a way to preserve subject-verb
> agreement, and I notice some others use "her" as a sort of
> overcompensation; but with each passing year I see "their" picking up more
> momentum in all corners, even in Academia.  Has this been picked up on any
> "official radar?"  Is it in any usage dictionaries yet?  Are there any
> other grammar formalists out there who cringe like I do when they hear
> this?
>
>
>
>
>
> At 08:40 PM 4/16/01, you wrote:
>
>
>       At 10:10 AM -0400 4/17/01, P2052 at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>
>               A number of the older grammar books/style manuals claim that
> either
>               acceptable.
>               In The Complete Stylist and Handbook, 3rd ed. (1984),
> Sheridan acknowledges
>               both a singular and a plural usage; however, he embraces the
> singular sense
>               of none:  "None of them are, of course is very common.  From
> Shakespeare's
>               time to ours, it has persisted alongside the more precise
> none of them is,
>               which seems to have the edge in careful prose, since it
> follows the structure
>               of English, matching singular with singular" (354).
>
>
>       I find this argument entirely circular and question-begging, besides
> flying in the face of centuries of distinguished usage.
>
>
>
>               He cites the following
>               examples:
>                                 FAULTY:  None of these men are failures.
>                                 REVISED:  None of these men is a failure.
>                                 FAULTY:  None of the class, even those
> best prepared, want
>               the test.
>                                 REVISED:  None of the class, even those
> best prepared,
>               wants the
>                                                   test.
>               Note that these uses of none are the equivalent of not one.
>
>
>
>       Actually, I'm not sure that "none" = 'not one' in the second
> example:  "Not one of the class wants the test"?  In any case, this
> equivalence (often used by earlier prescriptivists as a rationale for the
> singular agreement) is a bit of a red herring, since the one case where
> everyone has always used singular agreement, "none of the X" for mass noun
> X, doesn't permit a "not one" paraphrase.
>
>       larry
>