[Ads-l] "... there's just one of them"

[Neal Whitman]

I’d say it goes with the plural antecedent “moons”.

> On Jul 25, 2018, at 3:04 AM, Chris Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET> wrote:
> 
> I was just listening to the latest CBC radio broadcast of "Quirks and
> Quarks" (as a podcast, but no matter). Here's how the host introduced a new
> topic:
> 
> "You've probably noticed that our planet has exactly one moon. And it's a
> pretty good one, as moons go, but still, there's just one of them."
> 
> At this point I had a weird 200 milliseconds of wondering if the "them" is
> the gender-neutral singular they (referring to the Moon??), which it
> obviously isn't. But it nontheless came across as ever so slightly weird.
> OTOH, would "... there's just one of it." have been better?
> 
> For people, I do hear stuff like "[She's awesome, but we need to make sure
> not to overload her with work:] There's just one of her."
> 
> Idly speculating,
> 
> Chris
> 
> -- 
> Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
> 
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