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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: Achilles who wrote (1252)5/6/1998 8:39:00 PM
From: Jack Clarke  Read Replies (1) of 4711
 
Claude,

if someone wants to learn
grammar, all they have to do is go buy a book and work their way through it. (Note: I
believe 'their' in this last sentence is acceptable usage.)

I agree with you that it is acceptable, although I usually try to avoid the conflict between strict grammatical correctness and political correctness by using a plural noun like "people" so that "their" can have no complaints lodged against it. I really don't know, but I suspect that the use of "their" referring to a single antecedent of unknown sex is older than grammarians. Our current strict use is likely based on the classicists attempts to latinize our less disciplined tongue. It doesn't really matter, because the use in your post is widespread, although less so in formal writing. But I still don't use it. Pavlovian conditioning, I suppose.

Jack
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