Search results for 'tag:Genders tag:Possessives' matching tags 'Genders' and 'Possessives'

Re: live /lives?

Avangi — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:56:26 GMT

The important plural in your sentences is "those." People often misuse "their" as a singular, and "who" may be either singular or plural.

If you wanted to express the same thought in the singular, you might use the singular "whoever" in place of the plural "those." "I feel sorry for whoever lacks faith in his life."

this gets messy because of the gender issue. People (me, for instance) don't like to use "his or her," so they replace these singular pronouns with the plural "their," and say, "I feel sorry for whoever lacks faith in their life." This is a real mess. Note that "whoever lacks" has a singular subject and a singular verb.

If a man were leading two lives, the possessive pronoun (his) would still have to be singular: "I feel sorry for the man who lacks faith in his lives," just like, "I feel sorry for the man who lacks strength in his legs." "Legs" is plural, but "his" must be singular because "man" is singular.

Best wishes, - A.

Edit. About the ambiguity, my question is, where exactly is the faith lacking? Do YOU lack faith, or does you LIFE lack faith? For example, you'd say that YOU lack courage, or your LIFE lacks excitement. But "faith" can work either way. "I don't have enough faith in the way my life will turn out." "My life doesn't seem to have enough faith in it." (faith, as an ingredient in my life)

Make any sense??

Re: Possessive adjectives and pronouns, object pronouns for words such as "person, one, who"

khoff — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:06:35 GMT

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 might be considered socially incorrect. These days, at least in the U.S., the "best" solution is probably to say "his or her", like this:

The one who had lost his or her identification card, couldn't come in. (This example bothers me a bit, probably because I think it's unlikely that the speaker would know that someone had lost a card and was not allowed to come in but would not know if it was a man or a woman.)

- Each person should take his or her equipment to the bus.

- We don't know the person, but we shall wait for him or her, wearing white shirts and holding daisies in our hands.

In some cases, rewriting the sentence into the plural would be a good choice:

"Passengers should take their equipment to the bus."

"Those who lose their identification cards will not be allowed in." Obviously, this is not always possible if the subject is definitely singular.

We would never use "it" for a person.

However, since our language has no pronoun for "a single person of unknown gender," people have begun to use "they, their, them" in situations like this. (Each person should take their equipment to the bus.) Technically it's not correct to use "they" for a single person, but its gender-neutral property is so useful that it is being used this way more and more. It's much easier than saying "his or her." I can't speak for everyone, but it doesn't offend me, and I would be very likely to say it myself in conversation. It would probably be best to avoid it in very formal writing or on English exams.

(In thinking about this, I'm not sure why the evolution of the language has favored using the plural pronoun as a gender-neutral singular rather than using the gender-neutral but inanimate "it" for people -- but that's definitely what has happened. It would be very common to hear any of your examples with the appropiate form of "their," but never, never with "its.")

Re: their?

Vorpar — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:39:48 GMT

"Their" is used as a possessive for "the user" (to avoid gender pronouns like his or hers).

"they've": they is a pronoun for "the user" and is a contraction of "they have".

Re: his vs. their

Marius Hancu — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 04:19:51 GMT

When you can decide on gender (male/female) and number (singular/plural), use the respective possessive, in this case his.

When you can't decide, use their or his/her.

Each female officer was required to buy her own uniforms.
Each officer was required to buy his/her (or their) own uniforms.

Re: Angels - How should we use the pronouns ?

Clive — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 14:29:06 GMT

Hi,

The English language unfortunately lacks a simple singular pronoun which does not specify gender, That's why i would to ask the Experts here in this Forum about this debatable question " The possessive and objective pronoun of Angel ".

If i want to write a text as the following one :

" I dreamt about angels last night , There were more than 5 angels flying in the Sky tending towards me , one of them was so big with wings on his\her\its shoulders , when i saw and hear him\her\it calling me by my name .... i woke up immediatly scared "

Any pronoun should i choose? I would use its/it. Angels are not people. Are you even sure that angels have two different sexes?

Best wishes, Clive

Angels - How should we use the pronouns ?

FRANKLY SPEAKING — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:58:30 GMT

If i want to write a text as the following one :

" I dreamt about angels last night , They were more than 5 angels flying in the Sky tending towards me , one of them was so big with wings on his\her\its shoulders , when i saw and hear him\her\it calling me by my name .... i woke up immediatly scared "

Any pronoun should i choose?

Study guide.

Matrix4583 — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 02:03:02 GMT

Hey, i'm new here. My name is Tim and I got this forum from a friend of mine. He told me that this might help me with the problem i got. I have a brother that is 16 years old and i'm 23( in the US Army). He needs help with his english. The teacher gave him the study guide, but no answer on it. So i ask him to give the study guide to me and i'll help him with it. Well, since i'm busy soo much on school and my job, it's impossible for me to do this. I was wondering if you have some time and help me with this problem. I really appreciate it. Here's the problem.

Language Art:

A. apostrophe
B. Synonym
C. noun or pronoun
D. quotations mark
E. Adjective
F. verb or verb phrase
G. abbreviation
H. antonyms
I. root word.
J. proper nouns
K. Verb
L. action and linking
M. gerund
N. adverb
O. gender
P. subject
Q. Nomniative, object and possessive
R. Predicate nominative
S. Present, past and future
T. direct object.
U. prepositions
V. appositive
W. Object of a preposition

1.____ The subject of a sentence may be what part of speech?
2.____ States what the subject does, is or has in a sentence.
3.____ Sometimes called the simple predicate
4.____ The main part of a without any affixes.
5.____ Two kinds of a Verb.
6.____ What moddifies noun or pronoun?
7.____ What follow a linking verb or action verb?
8.____ The simple tense of verb.
9.____ Follow a preposition.
10.____ Tells more about another noun.
11.____ Answer "what?" or "whom?"
12.____ who or what the sentences about.
13.____ The three cases of personal pronoun.
14.____ personal pronoun have number, person and what?
15.____ Usually modifies a verb, but can sometimes modify an adjective.
16.____ show relationship between it's object and some other word in a sentence.
17.____ A participle that end in "ing" and functions as a noun.
18.____ needed to form possessive nouns and contractions.
19.____ Capitalized because they are particular person, places, and things.
20.____ A short way of writing a word consisting of some of the letters in the word followed by a period.
21.____ Used to show where the exact word of a speaker begin and end.
22.____ Opposite meaning.
23.____ A word that is similar to another in meaning.

That's it. Hoooha.

Study guide.

Matrix4583 — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:08:35 GMT

Re: "His being..." vs "Him being..."

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:45:54 GMT

Yulysess wrote:
Hi creolejazz,

The rule you search lies, I think, in the grammatical unit called "Nominal Clauses/ Nominal-ing clauses, that is, participle clauses", or as pieanne illustrated above, gerunds.

The commomest type of participle clause is that which has no subject.

When a is subject required, there is sometimes a choice as follows:

GENITIVE case in formal style:

I'm surprised at his/John's making that mistake

OBJECTIVE or COMMON case (for personal pronouns or nouns, espectively) in informal style:

I'm surprised at him/ John making that mistake.

But beware the subject

if it is an inanimate noun phrase which would not normally take the genitive case
use objective case and a pronoun in the objective case is disliked in subject position.

After the verbs such as

"hear, keep smell, start, stop, watch" use objective case

After the verbs such as

"avoid, enjoy, suggest" use possessive case

After the verbs such as

"dislike, excuse,fancy, forgive, imagine, like, mind, miss, prevent" you can use one of the both cases.

for a refence book "A University Grammar of English" Randolph QUIRK, Sidney GREENBAUM- Longman, p 321,366

I canât make head nor tail of this.

The rule you search lies, I think, in the grammatical unit called "Nominal Clauses/ Nominal-ing clauses, that is, participle clauses", or as pieanne illustrated above, gerunds.

Right gotcha. Nominal clause = participle clause; nominal-ing clause = gerunds clause

The commomest type of participle clause is that which has no subject.

When a is subject required, there is sometimes a choice as follows:

GENITIVE case in formal style:

I'm surprised at his/John's making that mistake

Hold on! Thatâs not a participle clause. Participle clauses are adjectives used to modify nouns. What you have there is a gerund but you begin by defining participle clauses.

OBJECTIVE or COMMON case (for personal pronouns or nouns, espectively) in informal style:

I'm surprised at him/ John making that mistake.

Firstly, what is the 'common' case? Has it something to do with gender?

Secondly, if you are using the objective case then what is âmakingâ? Itâs not a lexical (main) verb because it doesnât have a tense. So what is it?

But beware the subject

What the subect of the clause (âhimâ/âJohnâ)?

There is no subect of the clause as there is no lexical verb. In, âJohn was making a mistakeâ, you have a tense and therefore you have a lexical verb and hense John is the subject. However, âJohn making a mistakeâ is a noun phrase. There is no subject.

if it is an inanimate noun phrase which would not normally take the genitive case use objective caseâ¦

Again, it may sound right to the ear, but if one uses the objective case then we donât have a lexical verb what we have is a noun phrase:

ââ¦it making that mistakeâ

ââ¦him making that mistakeâ

â¦and why not use the possessive with inanimate subjects? We use the possessive with all kinds of nouns: a weekâs work, dutyâs call, etc.

and a pronoun in the objective case is disliked in subject position.

Wait a minute, didnât you just say that we had a choice? Besides, if the genitive case makes grammatical sense with inanimate objects then it must also make grammatical sense with humans.

After the verbs such as

"hear, keep smell, start, stop, watch" use objective case

After the verbs such as

"avoid, enjoy, suggest" use possessive case

After the verbs such as

"dislike, excuse,fancy, forgive, imagine, like, mind, miss, prevent" you can use one of the both cases.

Would you please give me a few examples of these, thanks

Sorry, if my tone indicates any frustration. I'm struggling to understand your post and it is frankly frustrating for me. Please would you or someone address my questions - thanks!

(edited to reduce the blank space)

Re: Every one is singular or plural

davkett — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 14:34:28 GMT

Pieanne,

Thank you. I stand corrected on misstating 'their' as a pronoun. I would have asked the same question, though, about the mixture of singular, plural.

Before the advent of Feminism, when 'he/his' was considered gender-neutral, do you think that the sentence would have been written, 'Everyone is busy with his own life'?

Now, when 'everyone' includes mixed gender, is 'their' the preferred possessive, or primarily when fluency is at stake?