Here’s a weird grammar rule.
My seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Lynn, taught us this is correct:
“Everyone take out his book.”
Why is that weird?
Because, according to Mr. Lynn, you should say “his” even if you’re speaking to men AND women!
Twelve-year-old Mr. Vig was not a feminist, but he thought that was a bit strange.
That was 1987.
And Mr. Lynn probably learned that rule in the 1950s.
Times have changed.
Now we say, “Everyone take out his or her book.”
Better.
But that’s still a little clumsy.
Even better, “Everyone take out their book.”
One Vitamin V reader made a good point yesterday: Language changes.
And like the dinosaurs, some rules die.
Question: What English grammar rule would you like to see end up in a museum next to the dinosaurs?
Click the button below and jump to the blog and tell me which rule must die!
There is no past or future tense in Indonesian. I wonder how they remember and how they plan. It would be interesting to rebuild our languages. Cancel past and future tense.
I think that sometimes past is contained in the presence and how we live now, we will live in the future , it is just my understanding
From my point of view, I would definitely suppress the add of a ‘s’ when you conjugate a verb at the third person 🙂
It means that now women appeared too, not only men exist… What to remove ? Hmm.. maybe some English book will be in future museums .. Contact is needed .. talking, real life, not technical English student’s books
Listen, listen and listen, says Mr. Vig, and zero grammar.
Cheers.
I think that inclusive language is not a sign of progress. Rules that work well must not die.
language is something alive, therefore it is continue to change and to adjust itself to the rithm of the changes what arehappening in time
Salut Ryan !
Pe timpul meu ,ni se spunea : ” Deschideți “cărțile(manualele) la pagina cutare sau Deschideți ” fiecare ” cărțile la pagina cutare .
Se tot vehiculează diverse variante de eliminare a unor reguli gramaticale .Stimați colegi ,aceste reguli nu au fost făcute de azi pe mâine.
Cel mai indicat ar fi că într un viitor mai mult sau mai puțin îndepărtat, academicienii lumii să propună și să se realizeze Intr o perioada de n ani o limbă universala, care să cuprindă lexic din limbile cel mai mult vorbite pe aceasta planetă numita ” PAMANT ”
Cheers
Gabriel
It was already an attempt to try to invent one language— Experando—– it failed
Așa este ,prin anii ‘ 60 cred,eram copil, tata îmi spunea despre aceasta încercare ,dar este posibil sa se mai încerce.
Hi! Weird grammar? The language is in chancing and the user of language too. “His/ her book” is relevant rule in German, Russian, English, but irrelevant e.g. in Hungarian. I speak Russian, German and study English. By study of my 1. foreign language (Russian), I understand what is the different between his/ her, that means man and women. In my mother’s language (and in some other) it is not relevant… The languages have influence to other languages, people and culture. The English has a big one to
other, I show in my mother language Hungarian. Maybe the English get influence from other grammar structure/rule ‘s languages in “weird grammar rule” his/her= their??? How know? It would be weird or not?
Hi!
In general I like rules. But unfortunately I can´t help here, sorry. The reason: I´m currently learning English without knowing any rules. It would be much easier if I knew them…I look forward to hearing what smarter students have to say about this topic.
You see…from “his” to “their” it’s a long way…
It looks like we don’t like “her”?????
As for me, the problem isn’t the rules, but the exceptions which in English as many as the rules.
Before to write what rule delete we need to know the rules and understand well how work, is the same difficult when you can see what people do everyday in something and there is not a rule, and, worst, someone ask to you “why you don’t follow rueles?”
Prepositions, please.
Yes, I also met this kind of disturbance of which is the correct use of language in this case. The above shown sentence is probably the less problematical with the use of “his or her”, and the less inconvenient with the use of ‘their’.
On the other hand, what is the matter with ‘everyone’ or ‘everybody’ in subject position?
If everyone/everybody rightly means of ‘every single one’, as I was taught by the beloved young and enthusiastic native lady-teachers of the British Council in Budapest, around 35 years ago, then the verb is determined after it as ‘takes’, as it is written in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (Oxford University Press 1995): (1) “You eat the olives, everybody else hates them.” (2) “Everyone knows what’s the best for him or herself.” I clearly remember of the teachers’ explanations concerning this but we can see, that within a 35 year-long period many-many things are rapidly changing and why the living languages would be the only phenomena being remained intact and unchanged.
I think most languages simplify, shorten, because life has sped up, so people don’t have much time, and communication should be clear and short. There’s no telling where this will lead, but it’s natural language change.