Jack, back to your picky point: if my hazy memory of German serves, mann is the only correct spelling for the pronoun, which is, after all, what we were discussing.
I think that your main point, reliance on the construction of various authors as grammatical authority, is open to serious question because your argument implicitly supposes that they were grammarians.
I don't mean to sound like an ideologue. I am actually quite flexible, and more than a little surprised that I am posting on this thread. I have nothing against the occasional split infinitive, dangling modifier or prepositional end to a sentence, and, while I abhor the indiscriminate use of "hopefully", I share no similar horror with "happily". I suppose I am grammatically conflicted.
What is important to me is a combination of graceful construction and clear thought. The combination of the plural possessive with the singular noun is both ugly and ambiguous because I find myself searching for the antecedent for the plural in some constructions.
Since I count myself among the grammatically challenged (notice how I cleverly slipped in some PC and psychobabble constructions like conflicted and challenged <g>) I will beat a hasty retreat from this thread before I attract the attention of real grammarians.
TTFN,
CTC |
