"HE" Is Such a "SHE"

You know, I seem to talk about grammar way too much on this blog. Don't worry; I'll switch up later on when I start to run out of ideas to palaver about. With that said, let me move on to the topic of conversation today—the epicene pronoun in English.

Well, English really doesn't have one so it has to make do. In order that it make do, it had for centuries borrowed the French "sexist" construction to do so. In French, sexism reigns supreme. Everything in French is determined to have a sex—whether it be nouns or articles or adjectives or so on. The French even have two forms of "they"—"ils" and "elles". "Ils" is used for "they" when it describes a group of men or a group that has at least one male in it whereas "elles" must be a group of all women. That means there could be a group of 100 women, but should there be one man there, "ils" must be used.

In Modern English, it has become gauche to use such a construction as the French do, but normative grammar rules still adhere to this rule. That means that the masculine pronoun, "he", along with all of its declensions, rules as the neutered pronoun to an extent and I shall explain the extent of it below:

Example: It is important that [every single person] do his own work.

Here, the subject is singular so the possessive pronoun "his" must synergize with its subject. Although this subject might be talking about a co-ed class, it still must take a masculine pronoun because, by rule, only one male has to be in that group to make it be the neutered "his" form.

The rule of course changes whenever the collective group might consist of all women or a woman is more likely to perform the task than a man is. For example:

Example: It is important that [every single person] do her own work.

The subject is obviously collective again and although it might be a simulacrum of the first example, this one is more likely to be said by someone who is working at an all-female school. Furthermore, there are some examples wherein women are more likely to perform the task such as these two:

Example: I think [someone] has forgotten her purse.

Example: [Every nanny] should know what she is doing.

A purse is usually carried by a woman and a nanny is usually female; therefore the neutered "her" and "she" versions must be used in these examples. These constructions have become shunned in recent time as people have become more politically-correct in their mannerisms. There are many who like the stilted, politically-correct version and the ungrammatical version such as the two below:

Example: Everyone should know [his or her] assignment by tomorrow.

Example: Everyone should know [their] assignment by tomorrow.

The first example is one that incorporates both males and females whereas the second one replaces it with the neutered third person plural pronoun "their". This is incorrect, though because "they" and its declensions cannot be used to represent a singular pronoun. This would fall under the topic of "synesis" as we discussed in yesterday's article. Furthermore, it is confusing as to whom the speaker is talking about in an example like the one below:

Example: The [bank robber] said they would shoot [anyone] if they tried to stop them.

In the above example, pronouns denoting the subject of the apodosis are in red whereas pronouns denoting the subject of the protasis are in blue. Here, one can see that "bank robber" is a singular pronoun, but it is being represented in pronoun form by third person plural. This is also seen in the subordinate clause of the apodosis with the word "anyone", which is singular and its form in the protasis, which is "they".

This is a very classic form of Modern English synesis. Here, the speaker does not want to divulge the sex of the "bank robber" perhaps because the speaker is unaware of the bank robber's sex. The speaker is also pluralizing the collective pronoun, "anyone", which is incorrect under normative English syntax. The example should read:

Example: The [bank robber] said he would shoot [anyone] if he tried to stop him.

While this is correct, it's very confusing. One should steer clear of using this example by trying to reword it. Of course, if there should only be one bank robber, one cannot say "they" so "he" is correct in this sense, but regarding the pronoun, "anyone", it might behoove the speaker to change that word so that it be an actual plural noun.

However you may look at it, just remember—it is best that you try to circumvent these constructions because they are now really considered "sexist" in nature and the best way to keep yourself from looking sexist is to eschew it whenever it be possible.