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Serdar281kd Posted 22 years ago
Grammar

Tag Questıon

i want to learn the reason why we use they for everybody,somebody in tag question however these are singular in normal sentence.for example:
somebody knocks the door.(here we use somebody as a singular indefinite pronoun)
but
somebody knocks the door,dont they(here why we use they as if someone was a plural)

please give me the reason.
  

Top answer

Are you sure that the second sentence is correct. As I know, it should be doesn't she/he?

— Gulnur

  • Are you sure that the second sentence is correct.
  • As I know, it should be doesn't she/he?
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8 Answers
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Are you sure that the second sentence is correct. As I know, it should be doesn't she/he?
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The reason is very simple. In this context the word "they" is acting as a third person SINGULAR pronoun. This is done because the alternative would be to use the somewhat cumbersome phrase "she or he". Using "he or she" may not seem so terrible in this one short example, but in a long paragraph it would get AWFULLY tedious and repetitious.

Rommie
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i want to learn about the taq question. do u help me pls
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i want to have more information about tag question and a few a litlle
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The word "somebody" is a singular pronoun, so it takes a singular verb, but it's also an indefinite pronoun, which means, we don't know if its referent is male or female, so asking,

?Someone's at the door, isn't she?
?Someone's at the door, isn't he?

sounds very odd. It means you know that the "someone", the unknown person at the door, is male or female. (Hey, how did you
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What tags are you having difficulty understanding? Could you give us a few examples? Emotion: smile
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GulnurAre you sure that the second sentence is correct. As I know, it should be doesn't she/he?
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information with taq questions
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