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One of the students has come to see you, ...............?(a) hasn't one(b) hasn't he(c) haven't theyCan any Englishman please say which of the above three options is the correct tag?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I am maybe 1/4 English, so I hope I'll do.

It's (b), but it's not that simple. The masculine pronoun has traditionally been used as the gender-neutral pronoun in English, since we don't actually have one. It has become fashionable to consider that sexist and to do whatever is necessary to take gender out of the equation, often by putting more in: "One of the students has come to see you, hasn't he or she?" This sentence is an excellent example of a failure of that method. Another way to simulate a gender-neutral pronoun is to use the plural form: "One of the students has come to see you, haven't they?" This, too, fails because the clash of number is pretty loud. But in other cases, the plural is perfectly natural English, used by the best writers all along and used unconsciously today in everyday speech with the intended import: "Somebody called. I don't know who it was, but they want you to call them back." The problem with it is that it offends the prescriptive grammarians among us, of which there are quite a few in academic circles, who condemn it as illiterate. The bottom line is, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Of course, you are off the hook if you already know the *** of the student.

Persian Learner · Answer

One of the students has come to see you, isn't that so?

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