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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Personal Pronouns

Yesterday a company left a message on my telephone answering machine, asking me to call them. The caller stated "This message is for Mr Joe Bloggs - it is urgent that they call us immediately on......etc".
So I called them and asked who they are. There is after all only one of me (that's more than enough, I hear you say !) The person who answered could not understand what I was talking about, which didn't really surprise me. I hung up and they lost a customer.
The reason I get annoyed about this sort of thing is that correct grammar helps communication and comprehension. The use of "they" as a substitute for "he" or "she" has grown because of people not wishing to appear to discriminate between the sexes, and whilst a "neutral" third person singular pronoun would be useful, "they" is certainly not appropriate as it is already in use as a plural pronoun, whilst "it" implies a non-human object. "He or she" has been used for goodness knows how long and serves its purpose even if rather clumsy.
The person who left me the message referred to me as "Mister" and so knew my sex, so there was absolutely no excuse for his error.
I'm all for language changing and evolving over time, with new words and phrases etc. But there is a need for a basic structure, otherwise we will find communication becoming more difficult.
Those people who draft laws and write legal documents will know how careful they have to be in what they write so that there are no ambiguities which could give lawyers a field-day in court.
I hope I'm not alone in this - leave me a comment and cheer me up !

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