That plural problem

Well, sorry. Grammar is not that hard. Dr. Earl Babbie in his “Picky pronouns” guest column might have us believe otherwise, though, based on his description of what he called “the Third Person Pronoun Dilemma ( TPPD).”

At issue is what pronoun to use when referring to a singular noun. Okay, real easy now: Singular means single, just one. A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. A pronoun is a noun substitute. For example, if we were writing about a man, we would use “he,” “his,” or “him” sometimes instead of “The man ate the man’s dinner by the man’s self.”

Because a pronoun is a stand- in for a noun, it has to fit that noun perfectly. Easy stuff. One guy is a he and one woman is a she. But what if we were talking abut a student? Just one. A student is a singular noun so we could say “he or she” and be correct. Until we weren’t. Until we slipped up and wrote “they” instead of “he or she” because saying “he or she” every time is so clunky that it sounds wrong even though it isn’t.

Dr. Babbie seems to be suggesting that we just go straight to the mistake. Poof. “A student” is a “they.” Here’s his example: “When a student comes to explain why their paper is late, I ask them to sit down for a chat.”

Nope. Ain’t right. “Their/ them” are not perfect fits for “a student.”

Hmm. We don’t want to write clunky sentences by using “he or she” every time or verbally perform possible gender reassignments by using just “he” or just “she,” nor engage in cloning by turning one student into several.

The easiest fix is probably the simplest. Go plural. Dr. Babbie himself suggested this but he ended up with an error in pronoun antecedent by going plural in the wrong place. He cloned with his “their/ them.”

To be right, you have to go plural with both the noun and the pronoun: When students come in to explain why their papers are late, I ask them to sit down for a chat. TOMMIE LACKMAN

El Dorado