Hmm...'their' vs 'his/her'
I recently got into a facebook fight with one of my aquaintences from highschool over the apropriateness of using 'their' as a gender neutral possesive adjective for the third person singular. According to the grammar text I use to teach ESL/TOEFL, 'their' has been an acceptable gender neutral alternative to 'his or her' since at least 2003.
Said aquaintence argued that while that may be true, he thought it was stupid to change the language for lazy people who couldn't be bothered to learn proper English. He compared it to using 'ain't' or 'gonna'.
My personal thoughts on this whole thing is that English is a living language, and by that definition, is constantly evolving to suit the needs of the people who speak it. English as we speak it today is not the same as the English from 100 years ago, and that's only taking into account English spoken in the United States. If we start comparing Brittish English and Australian English and Canadian English...well the whole thing just gets that much more complicated.
What think you, flist?
Said aquaintence argued that while that may be true, he thought it was stupid to change the language for lazy people who couldn't be bothered to learn proper English. He compared it to using 'ain't' or 'gonna'.
My personal thoughts on this whole thing is that English is a living language, and by that definition, is constantly evolving to suit the needs of the people who speak it. English as we speak it today is not the same as the English from 100 years ago, and that's only taking into account English spoken in the United States. If we start comparing Brittish English and Australian English and Canadian English...well the whole thing just gets that much more complicated.
What think you, flist?