Nóirín (Plunkett) Shirley a écrit :
On 12/6/07, Lucien GENTIS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Vincent Bray a écrit :
On 06/12/2007, Lucien GENTIS
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
In fact, it's not a gender problem ; sentence is :
"for instance, an individual might have a personal certificate as well
as one for their identity as an employee."
"their" is plural and agrees with "an individual" who's all alone ; so
"their" could rather be replaced by "his/her"
You're correct - but so is Vincent.
"Their" /could/ be replaced with "his/her" in this context - but it's
gotten to the stage where it's perfectly acceptable linguistically to
use "their" /instead of "his or her", when the gender is inclusive or
uncertain/ (OED's language, not mine).
My vote would be in favour of keeping this as "their". There's no
linguistic reason to change it, and "his or her" gets unwieldy very
rapidly.
Noirin, an English speaker =)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OK, no problem ; question seemed obvious for me because there's no
equivalent in french.
What you say is confirmed here : http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/their
(very good link I was given in this list)
Thanks for grammatical course and Guinness flavour twang ;-)
Lucien
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
