Sure, but it’s the lesson writers being verbose.
Use of "their" in lessons for singular to be PC
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"Their" is correct if you consider White a person. You don't use "it" for people, it's got nothing to do with "PC".
Picky, picky fuzz bug. Anyone with the moniker fuzzbug... you get the idea.
Feb 12, 2018
0
#25
I don't like "their" or "the." Both contain "he." What about the "she's?" Oh wait.... that has a "he" in it too. Dang. Maybe we should just (which has "us" in it, excluding "them", which in turn has "he") reduce the English Language to a gutteral "unk, unk, unk." No, that sounds like "Uncle." Don't want to offend the aunts out there. I truly hate PC writing.
Feb 13, 2018
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#26
Rglambsb wrote:
That's true in the plural, not the singular. How does "Black needs to protect their knight" sound to you? I suggest his, her, or the - all are a better option than their. E.G., John played their bishop is obviously not correct; John played his bishop or White played her bishop, or White played the bishop are OK.
"Black needs to protect their knight" is ok, since "black" is not a name. you could even say "black" is the whole army
Feb 13, 2018
0
#27
"Their" can be used in the singular when the gender of the person is not specified. Many people would prefer to do so rather than use "his or her" or "his/her", but either are perfectly OK.
It's wrong to think that this is a new usage, because good writers have been doing it for centuries. It is NOT an example of 'political correctness' (and just how could 'political correctness' be relevant here anyway?).
The trouble is that we are often slaves to long-dead journalistic hacks who wrote grammar books that we read when we were kids, and we assume that therefore they must be correct.
Feb 13, 2018
0
#28
hairhorn wrote:
"Their" is correct if you consider White a person. You don't use "it" for people, it's got nothing to do with "PC".
I disagree. It is correct when talking PC because any hint of gender is unacceptable. Thankfully the plurals in English are neutral for the most part if you avoid male=plural constructs.
Heather_Stephens wrote:
The trouble is that we are often slaves to long-dead journalistic hacks who wrote grammar books that we read when we were kids, and we assume that therefore they must be correct.
This causes me to immediately think of the uproar created by those determined to stubbornly oppose anyone who dares to freely split infinitives.
There is so little grammar to be observed in properly constructing an English sentence, yet it seems people are determined to omit even what little accidence the language requires! So now people are referred to by 'that' rather than 'who,' as in 'people that I know,' and there is no attempt to get the number of referents right in a sentence, so a plural reference is just fine when a singular is meant. I wonder what would happen if ordinary English speakers had to use a language like Russian, with seven cases and three genders, or German, with four cases and three genders, plus singular and plural forms, to say nothing of all the complex changes verbs undergo. But in English even singular and plural distinctions are just too much, so illiterate usages come streaming in at even the slightest demands from the language that a modicum of intelligence be displayed in using it.
Part of this comes from the scourge of political correctness, which is so terrified at empowering males by using the word 'he' that it has abandoned the grammatical 'he,' which used to require that reference to an actor whose gender was unclear or included males and females would always be 'he.' This was based on the utter and absolute idiocy that grammatical gender has something to do with real gender, so it was stupid to start with. Consider languages where the distinction between grammatical and real gender is more evident, like German, where 'the little girl' (das Maedchen) is neuter, 'the guard' (die Wache) is feminine, and 'the uterus' (der Uterus) is masculine! Imagine bothering to change words in German so they would match real genders, or regarding it as somehow empowering or insulting one gender or the other that 'die Relativitaetstheorie' is feminine and 'der Tod' is masculine! But in English the difference between grammatical and real gender is less evident, so it suddenly becomes vitally important to avoid using 'he' as the general referent, so we have to have resort to the clumsy, 'he or she,' which then pushes us to the briefer, 'they,' and so we decline into illiteracy.
Luitpoldt wrote:
There is so little grammar to be observed in properly constructing an English sentence, yet it seems people are determined to omit even what little accidence the language requires! So now people are referred to by 'that' rather than 'who,' as in 'people that I know,' and there is no attempt to get the number of referents right in a sentence, so a plural reference is just fine when a singular is meant. I wonder what would happen if ordinary English speakers had to use a language like Russian, with seven cases and three genders, or German, with four cases and three genders, plus singular and plural forms, to say nothing of all the complex changes verbs undergo. But in English even singular and plural distinctions are just too much, so illiterate usages come streaming in at even the slightest demands from the language that a modicum of intelligence be displayed in using it.
Part of this comes from the scourge of political correctness, which is so terrified at empowering males by using the word 'he' that it has abandoned the grammatical 'he,' which used to require that reference to an actor whose gender was unclear or included males and females would always be 'he.' This was based on the utter and absolute idiocy that grammatical gender has something to do with real gender, so it was stupid to start with. Consider languages where the distinction between grammatical and real gender is more evident, like German, where 'the little girl' (das Maedchen) is neuter, 'the guard' (die Wache) is feminine, and 'the uterus' (der Uterus) is masculine! Imagine bothering to change words in German so they would match real genders, or regarding it as somehow empowering or insulting one gender or the other that 'die Relativitaetstheorie' is feminine and 'der Tod' is masculine! But in English the difference between grammatical and real gender is less evident, so it suddenly becomes vitally important to avoid using 'he' as the general referent, so we have to have resort to the clumsy, 'he or she,' which then pushes us to the briefer, 'they,' and so we decline into illiteracy.
Lol really? What a travesty.
It's quite funny. The dictionary supports the use of their (?) (#5?)
For one we don't know how many people are playing black in the first place, so they makes more sense. "It's" (black moves it's knight) just sounds silly as we are dealing with a person(s) of unknown gender or quantity. and if you want to say "his or her" every other sentence because you feel "they" is too PC, then so be it.
I always assumed "they" simply referred to all of that sides pecies.
It's quite funny. The dictionary supports the use of their (?) (#5?)
For one we don't know how many people are playing black in the first place, so they makes more sense. "It's" (black moves it's knight) just sounds silly as we are dealing with a person(s) of unknown gender or quantity. and if you want to say "his or her" every other sentence because you feel "they" is too PC, then so be it.
I always assumed "they" simply referred to all of that sides pecies.
Or the pieces and played(s)
*player(s)
VicountVonJames wrote:
we don't know how many people are playing black in the first place
we don't know how many people are playing black in the first place
That's a point I hadn't thought of--and one more likely to appeal to people who object to "they" on the grounds of it being too politically correct (a code word for "threatening to [empowered group I'm part of]").
Its,for singular self possession.
"White moved its knight".