Changing “Their” To A Single Pronoun

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK

It is always difficult to determine if the time has come to adapt to grammatical errors and the incorrect use of words that have crept into everyday speech. But there are times when it is the wise thing to do. For example, I would argue that it makes no sense any longer to be rigid about the correct use of the term “begging the question.” We use words to communicate. If clinging to proper and traditional word usage leads to confusion, why do it? Highly respected reporters and television commentators now use “begs the question” in the incorrect way — all the time.
They use the term to mean a statement that cries out for a follow-up question. An example would be if a reporter wrote, “The candidate for mayor has proposed building new prisons for the city. This begs the question if he also has a policy on crime prevention.” That well may be a valid follow-up question, but, if we are going to be grammatically correct, that is not what the expression “begs the question” means.
What it means is that the speaker is drawing a conclusion based on a premise that lacks proof, such as “John Smith is trustworthy because he is an elected official,” invalidly assuming without offering any evidence that all elected officials are trustworthy. But I can’t remember the last time I saw the term used that way. I now hesitate to use it the proper way for fear that I will confuse people.
Militant feminism has complicated this matter. Are there any instances where some compromise with feminists on our choice of words is justified? I’d say yes. Not every feminist demand is a threat to our values: using “chairperson” rather than “chairman,” for example. We are at the point now where even women who have no ties to feminist causes recoil when they are referred to as a “chairman.” It does no good to go on protesting that “man” in this instance can refer to both men and women. Most modern women don’t see it that way, in my experience, just as single women now generally reject the term “Miss.” They want to be called “Ms.” It is not the end of the world if we agree to do that. Why annoy anyone if it is not necessary?
On the other hand, I would argue that the secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, went off the tracks in his attempt to appease radical feminists. He should be opposed; many in the Navy are speaking out against him. Mabus has ordered that the Navy no longer use terms such as “seaman,” “fireman,” “corpsman,” and “airman,” and replace them with “gender neutral” job descriptions. He recommends the job codes found in Navy manuals, “B320” or “B450,” for example. That’s just silly.
So was Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine when he referred to himself recently as someone who will be Hillary Clinton’s “right-hand person.” Please. He is male. There is nothing offensive about calling himself a “right-hand man.” He sounded like a Saturday Night Live spoof of political correctness gone haywire.
Josh Gelernter, in the October 8 online edition of National Review, offered another example of where he feels we should remain firm against feminist demands for “gender neutral” ways of expressing ourselves. But I think I may disagree with him on this one. See what you think.
Gelernter believes the 127-year-old American Dialect Society made a mistake when they voted to recommend that we should use the plural pronoun “their” as a single pronoun, making it their “Word of the Year.” I am leaning toward agreeing with the American Dialect Society.
The example Gelernter offers is the sentence “everyone wants their cat to succeed.” English teachers for centuries would have corrected a student who wrote that sentence by changing “their” to “his,” with the explanation that “everyone” is not a plural pronoun. Which is true, of course. None of us would say or write, “Everyone are going to the fair.”
The feminists object, however. They do not want “his” to be used as the pronoun of choice. They see that as sexist. They argue that we should write the sentence as follows: “Everyone wants his or her cat to succeed.”
Sorry, this just doesn’t work for me. Using “his or her” looks awkward, contorted, strained, especially when it is repeated over and over in the same essay. For years now I have felt it makes sense to just replace “his or her” with “their,” even though that is grammatically incorrect. Again: “Everyone” is a singular pronoun; “their” is plural.”
Would making such a change be all that worse than the way even the best of modern writers no longer pay attention to the difference between “shall” and “will,” or “you” and “thou, or worry about splitting infinitives, as in the opening line from Star Trek: “To go boldly where no men have gone before” ? (Or should that be “To go boldly where no person has gone before?”) I don’t think so.
The American Dialect Society doesn’t think so either. Gelernter points to a Washington Post editor, who “describes the ‘singular they’ as ‘the only sensible solution to English’s lack of a gender-neutral third-person personal pronoun.” Gelernter objects: “But English does have a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun — it’s ‘he.’ Per the dictionary of record, Webster’s Second International Unabridged, the primary definition of the pronoun ‘he’ is ‘the male or female being previously designated’….The first definition Webster’s gives for ‘man’ is ‘a member of the human race’.”
Gelernter points to how women on stage and screen now prefer to be called “actors” rather than “actresses,” as if the feminine form of the word implies a second-class status. They accept that the word “actor” represents both male and female performers. Why then object to a statement such as: “Everyone in the cast was proud of his performance”? Gelernter argues, “Aside from being wrong and sounding wrong, using ‘they’ as a singular steals precision from the language. It is destructive. It makes horseshoe throws of sentences that would previously have been bull’s-eyes.”
Gelernter’s logic is sound. Even so, if most modern women are going to raise their eyebrows or frown when they hear or read a statements such as “Everyone in the family was proud of his role in organizing the holiday festivities” (as I think they will) — why should we cling to the traditional usage? Beyond that, should we continue to lower the grades of students who write, “Everyone on the championship team was proud of their achievement”?
I would vote no, in agreement with the American Dialect Society. We welcome correspondence from readers who disagree.

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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.