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Usenet Posted 22 years ago
Usage
Their... singular or plural?
Hi everybody,
I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in our own language! It is about sentences like:
-Forget about what people do in their HOME => this could give the impression that all of them are sharing the same home!
-Forget about what people do in their HOMES => this could give the impression that the same person owns several homes!
In other words, there are several homes but we mean each person and his/her only home. Which is the right way to express this in English?
Thanks in advance,
Sergio
I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in our own language! It is about sentences like:
-Forget about what people do in their HOME => this could give the impression that all of them are sharing the same home!
-Forget about what people do in their HOMES => this could give the impression that the same person owns several homes!
In other words, there are several homes but we mean each person and his/her only home. Which is the right way to express this in English?
Thanks in advance,
Sergio
Top answer
Sergio wrote on 26 Oct 2004: [nq:1]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in ... homes but we mean each person and his/her only home.
- Sergio wrote on 26 Oct 2004: [nq:1]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question.
- I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in ...
- homes but we mean each person and his/her only home.
- [/nq] There are a couple of answers to this question.
- (1) The second sentence above (plural "homes") is one answer, even though there is the ambiguity of some of the individual persons referred to possibly owning more than one house or having more than one home I don't see that as a serious semantic problem.
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13 Answers
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Sergio wrote on 26 Oct 2004:
[nq:1]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in ... homes but we mean each person and his/her only home. Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
There are a couple of answers to this question.
(1) The second sentence above (plural "homes") is one answer, even though there is the amb
[nq:1]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in ... homes but we mean each person and his/her only home. Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
There are a couple of answers to this question.
(1) The second sentence above (plural "homes") is one answer, even though there is the amb
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[nq:1]I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in our own ... homes but we mean each person and his/her only home. Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
Neither. Use the obvious idiom and say:
Forget about what people do AT HOME.
Neither. Use the obvious idiom and say:
Forget about what people do AT HOME.
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J. W. Love wrote on 26 Oct 2004:
[nq:2]I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and ... Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
[nq:1]Neither. Use the obvious idiom and say: Forget about what people do AT HOME.[/nq]
Yep, that's a much better suggestion.
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.
[nq:2]I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and ... Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
[nq:1]Neither. Use the obvious idiom and say: Forget about what people do AT HOME.[/nq]
Yep, that's a much better suggestion.
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.
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[nq:1]J. W. Love wrote on 26 Oct 2004:[/nq]
[nq:2]Neither. Use the obvious idiom and say: Forget about what people do AT HOME.[/nq]
[nq:1]Yep, that's a much better suggestion.[/nq]
But it covers only the home(s).
What about the parents of an only child? Or the dog lovers? Or the believers who worship their gods, are they all pluritheists?
[nq:2]Neither. Use the obvious idiom and say: Forget about what people do AT HOME.[/nq]
[nq:1]Yep, that's a much better suggestion.[/nq]
But it covers only the home(s).
What about the parents of an only child? Or the dog lovers? Or the believers who worship their gods, are they all pluritheists?
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[nq:1]Sergio wrote on 26 Oct 2004:[/nq]
[nq:2]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question. I'm from ... Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
[nq:1]There are a couple of answers to this question. (1) The second sentence above (plural "homes") is one answer, even ... totally unobjectionable to the PC-minded is to say something like "Forget about what a person does in their
[nq:2]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question. I'm from ... Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
[nq:1]There are a couple of answers to this question. (1) The second sentence above (plural "homes") is one answer, even ... totally unobjectionable to the PC-minded is to say something like "Forget about what a person does in their
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[nq:1]Hi everybody, I have a very tricky question. I'm from Spain and we can hardly agree with this even in ... homes but we mean each person and his/her only home. Which is the right way to express this in English?[/nq]
I prefer the second version, but I don't think you will be misunderstood if you use the first version. The first version is, as you point out, the one to use when all the peop
I prefer the second version, but I don't think you will be misunderstood if you use the first version. The first version is, as you point out, the one to use when all the peop
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[nq:1]Proper English used to use the "common gender"; the masculinesingular pronoun was used when a person of undetermined *** was spoken of. Nowadays, I've seen things like "Every mother must care for their child."[/nq]
Cece, you're asking for trouble! Take a look at the archive for the last week or two. Or maybe just wait for about three months, and see us do it all again.
As I've said,
Cece, you're asking for trouble! Take a look at the archive for the last week or two. Or maybe just wait for about three months, and see us do it all again.
As I've said,
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[nq:1](3) Another solution that most people concerned about style don't like but seems totally unobjectionable to the PC-minded is to say something like "Forget about what a person does in their own home".[/nq]
Also totally objectionable to those of us who learned it as part of our dialect as children decades before anybody decided to castigate speech as "PC".
Evan Kirshenbaum + HP La
Also totally objectionable to those of us who learned it as part of our dialect as children decades before anybody decided to castigate speech as "PC".
Evan Kirshenbaum + HP La
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[nq:2]Nowadays, I've seen things like "Every mother must care for their child."[/nq]
Sounds perfectly right to me - indeterminate number of mothers. Maybe it's a generational thing.
JGH
Sounds perfectly right to me - indeterminate number of mothers. Maybe it's a generational thing.
JGH
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[nq:1]Sounds perfectly right to me - indeterminate number of mothers. Maybe it's a generational thing.[/nq]
Yes, but all of them are women, I think.
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Yes, but all of them are women, I think.
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
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