Every writer should keep their eyes open
Posted by bradburg on June 12, 2008
English has some singular/plural issues, as in a situation when — for example –”The speech was so boring, everyone began shutting their eyes.” To avoid both that mistake and the too-formal kind of fix (“his or her eyes”), a rewrite is typically necessary. That often takes more than simple re-jiggering, but an actual rewrite — e.g., “eyelids began drooping everywhere.”
In any case, what’s truly surprising (and irritating, to anyone who knows better) is to see text–in particular, professionally-written text–that manages to create such a problem when it’s not even there.
Here’s a truly astoundingly inept example, and from the FIRST sentence of an article in the New York Times, no less, of August 21, 2008, page D4, “All-Around Appeal” (are the Times editors asleep?): “Each with an Olympic gold medal to call their own, the gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson prepared to part ways after sharing the long road to stardom.” How could it not occur to anyone at the paper of record–writer or editors–that the first phrase cried out for “to call HER own”? It’s not just a question of complete ignorance of basic usage (how can “each” be followed by “their”???); you’d need a tin ear too. to think “their own” was fine, in that sentence.
And now we hear from New York magazine, May 12, 2008, page 37: “If Chloe Sevigny [wore] a potato sack, it wouldn’t take long before every other girl on the Lower East Side needed their potato sack.” [Italics in original.] What??? Here again, this particular problem doesn’t even exist, since only females were involved, and the sentence could–and should–have ended with “her potato sack.” It would seem that here was someone vaguely aware that such constructions can be tricky, who then, in a mechanical avoidance reflex, managed to insert an error when there wasn’t any danger of one. Half-awake, evidently (with editors half-dozing along).
Suppose the problem in the New York article had existed? That is, what if the thought had applied to both sexes: “If all the unisex trendies wore green jackets, it wouldn’t be long before everyone else on the Lower East Side needed. . . . ” This does present that “their/his-or-her” problem. Again, a rewrite would solve it: ”. . . it wouldn’t be long before every Lower East Side fashion-follower sported the same crucial garment.”
