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Tue 8 Mar, 2005 08:04 pm
Help from anyone knowledgeable in grammar would be greatly appreciated here. We just finished a unit in my high-school english class on the use of pronouns, and one of the sentences is confusing me. The sentence was written as, "Neither of the actresses ever forgets to put on (her, their) makeup before a show."
We were supposed to select either her or their as the correct answer, and I took the normal spoken their. The teacher marked it wrong, explaining that Neither is a singular word(I'd like to say pronoun, but my mind for english is currently somewhat fried), and so it would take the singular pronoun. Looking back, the sentence is certainly written to suggest that only one of the actresses is being referred to, as the verb is conjugated in the third person present form. However, I'm not sure that the sentence was written correctly to begin with. Certainly in spoken english, I personally would say the sentence as, "Neither of the actresses ever forget to put on their make-up befor a show."
Confirmation either way would be much appreciated.
Gah, we just had a big long discussion of this "their" business, or we were anyway, but the thread doesn't seem to have revived since I last posted.
Yes, "neither" is singular. Well, not according to some people on the forum, but that is my (and a lot of other people's) personal opinion on that matter. In colloquial English, we say "their". In formal, proper, essay-writing, English-teacher-impressing English we say "her". It's a minor dialectic difference, as far as I'm concerned, and I wouldn't say that either is right or wrong, independant of context. Use "her" on the English papers. Use whatever you want wherever else.
"neither" is singular and should be used as such.
Many grammatical errors go uncorrected these days, but one ought still strive for correctness.
Feminist movement changes rules...
Part of the larger issue with his/her vs. theirs is the gender specificity of the singular pronouns.
The use of "her" is undeniably correct in that sentence. However, what if the two people in the subject were not of the same gender?
Example:
Neither Bob nor Jill chose to finish his assignment.
At one point, the use of "his" was deemed correct. The use of "their" may have been to eliminate the inclusion of a female with the pronoun "his".
I had one female professor who said that "his/her" or "his or her" was necessary to show respect to the female gender. In my opinion, that's the point where political correctness and liberation movements begin to cross the line in to the ridiculous. Then again, I'm not a woman.
Just a thought.
"Example: Neither Bob nor Jill chose to finish his assignment. "
The use of "his" here is no more or less correct than the use of "her" would be.
Using "their" would be using the wrong tense, so why not simply say "Neither Bob nor Jill chose to finish THE assignment. "
rufio wrote:Gah, we just had a big long discussion of this "their" business, or we were anyway, but the thread doesn't seem to have revived since I last posted.
Yes, "neither" is singular. Well, not according to some people on the forum, but that is my (and a lot of other people's) personal opinion on that matter. In colloquial English, we say "their". In formal, proper, essay-writing, English-teacher-impressing English we say "her". It's a minor dialectic difference, as far as I'm concerned, and I wouldn't say that either is right or wrong, independant of context. Use "her" on the English papers. Use whatever you want wherever else.
I beg to differ.
You can't just tell people to use incorrect English. If neither is singular, then singular shall it be.
No wonder more than half of the US population have problems expressing themselves.
It's not an issue of whether neither is singular or not. It's an issue of whether 'their' is plural or not all the time. Certainly, it's not always used in a plural sense, for whatever reason. I'm not telling anyone to do anything except to use a more conventional pronoun on English papers.
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