By Pronouns, Plurals

See my thoughts above on the plural issue. As for the question of 'he' when the gender is unknown, it is indeed very common. In English, if the gender isn't specifically known, it's generally assumed to be male. There is of course a lot of talk about this being sexist language,...

Hi Saadi, When we use “it is” in the context such as yours, it is nearly impossible to come up with an explanation which may fit all the usages. It is cold and dark outside! – What is “it” ? one may ask. It – is an abstract pronoun which could be either plural or singular in this type of...

Hi,I'm really enjoying this. You're making me think. I'm going to take your points out of sequence. I think I'm still replying to your post; if I misrepresent what you're saying, please correct me. First, the summary of what I'm going to say: A lot depends on theory, and...

StartFragment> Mothers spent most of her time preparing meals, washing and ironing, and cleaning the house. I have a question about a pronoun "HER." In the above sentence we can easily infer that 'her' implies 'mothers.' But while 'her' is single,...

Thanks for the help and clearing my mistakes. For the first group. Want to discuss 2nd groupe though.1. Neither goes with singular meaning i would place Verb "is" in place of "are" to balance the sentence right !2. Yes in this sentence i find stuck badly i have read that if a...

Thank you, Clive. Actually the reason I ask this question is because when I read my grammar book, it says when we are trying to use multiple personal pronouns, we should follow a set order: singular: You, he and I are classmates. (second person, third person, first person) plural: We, you...

Exceptions to what? :DAnyway, the verb in the first part of the sentences is singular because "someone" and "nobody" are singular. In the second part, "they" is used as a sex-neutral pronoun, and since it is plural, the verb is as well.

Hi everyoneI just wondered if anyone could help - I have to write a profile of a chinese learner of English (completely made up). In it I must put any difficulties that the learner has in learning English as an L2. I have got so far:Intonation transfer from L1 may cause them to be perceived as...

1. Do not place a phrase or clause:A. in a sentence. B. at the beginning of a sentence. C. at the end of a sentence. D. too far from the word it is meant to modify.Answer D. 2. In every sentence, the subject must agree with the:A. object of the preposition. B. verb. C. intervening expressions....

English really needs another pronoun for cases like this! Traditionally, if the gender was unknown, the masculine pronoun would be used. In a grammar book from 50 years ago, your examples would most certainly use "his." Today this would still be considered grammatically correct, but...