So are you saying, Alison, that the SAT and other standardized tests would
find such usage preferable? Most of the SAT questions provide choices, and
if one of the choices were to recast the sentence to avoid pairing the
singular noun with the plural "their," would that not be the "correct"
choice? 

 

By the way, the answer to today's SAT "question of the day" is a good
example of why we don't need that tail to wag this dog. See it at
http://apps.collegeboard.com/qotd/question.do. I chose option "A" because I
thought the verb needed to be in the present tense. I imagine that a lot of
students who have been taught to refer to published writing in the present
tense would also have made that selection. 

 

Nancy 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alison Cochrane
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 11:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: more teaching questions on grammar

 

Natalie,

 

The third person plural subject/possessive pronoun has become widely
accepted recently for standardization purposes instead of continually
writing he/she.

 

Alison

QCC

New York, NY

 

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up
where I needed to be. " 
~ Kahlil Douglas Adams





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