A poetic "oopsie"

[amberica]

My dad asked why I called the website "Jon and Amber" Dot Com as opposed to "Amber and Jon". I explained that it was because the rhythm was better that way. I said it was iambic. D'oh!! I realized, JUST NOW, that "Jon and Amber" is not iambic, but trochaic (the EXACT OPPOSITE), and now I am deeply, poetically, embarassed. Not only for myself, but for my DAD who was an ENGLISH teacher back in the days before I was born. SHAME on us, SHAME.

Comments

[mouse-gerald.livejournal.com]

Ask your dad this, or you probably know the answer. It's been bugging me for a few days now, but I'm too lazy to try to Google it:

"Everybody has his ______" or "Everybody has their ______"

?

Is "everybody" singular or plural? It seems like it's plural, but I know there's some weird rule at play here that I used to know...

To me, "Amber and Jon" rolls off the tongue just as easily as "Jon and Amber." I think it's a matter of however you're used to seeing & saying it.

[amberica.livejournal.com]

Well! I just called my dad and had a VERY interesting discussion about this! He told me that he has done extensive research into the whole "his vs. their" controversy - and yes, it is a big one - and that it is perfectly acceptable, even correct, to use "they" or "their" in a sense where one does not know the gender of the person about which one is speaking. (High school English teachers may disagree, but those with their PhDs will tell you otherwise! Hell, even Shakespeare used it.) English does not have a formal gender-neutral pronoun as do other languages, so we can and do use "they" to speak of a person whose gender is unknown.

The word "everybody" adds an extra twist, in that it seems like a plural noun (pronoun?) but it is always used in a gramatically singular sense. In fact, if you think about it, it is a singular noun! It refers to "Every Person" - each one of the people. Or try this:

"He LOVES pizza." (Singular)
"They LOVE pizza." (Plural)
"Everybody LOVES pizza." (Same as the Singular use above!)

I hope this helps you a bit... Or better yet, I hope it opens up more questions in your mind! I think everyone should be more fascinated with our quirky and amazing language. What a fun one!

Oh. You had an actual question, too, didn't you? OK, the answer is, "Everybody has their..." (because we are speaking in a singular sense, but do not know the gender of the person we are speaking about. If we were referring to a troop of Boy Scouts we could say "Everybody has his..." and that would work fine, too.)

Although I'd say "Everyone" instead. "Everybody" sounds like something a DJ calls the people who want to dance.

[mouse-gerald.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this! I was writing something a few days ago and came across the "everybody" question, and it vexed me, and has been in the back of my mind nagging me ever since.

> the answer is, "Everybody has their..." (because we are speaking
> in a singular sense, but do not know the gender of the person we are
> speaking about.

I love the unwritten rule that says, "We don't have enough information to be sure we're right, so let's do something we at least know is wrong," hehe. I'm fairly sure that when I learned these rules 25 years ago, the default was the masculine if the gender was uncertain. I just remember not liking the rules being compromised, and I don't like it any better now.

I agree with you on "everyone" over "everybody," and your analogy made me laugh because it's so true. :)

Now, one last favor & I'll quit pestering you on this. Would you mind unlocking this entry? My two best friends are on LJ, and grammar fiends themselves. I think they might find this interesting... although I'm glad this is an e-thing just in case their reaction would be to roll their eyes and say "Duh."

[amberica.livejournal.com]

I can't unlock this because it is too embarassing that I couldn't tell an iamb from a trochee. (Turns out my dad actually knew all along but didn't say anything because he couldn't think of the term at the time!) That, and I don't want my website name all out in the open.

well.... hmm. I guess it looks like the website name is on my userinfo page anyway... so it's not like I'm putting private info out in the wide open.

OK. Fine. Unlocked. ;P

[mouse-gerald.livejournal.com]

No no, those are French words, see, and we tend to not pay much attention to them because they're so seldom right about anything: "Nazis are our friends" and "not bathing doesn't make you smell" and so on.

Thanks for unlocking!

[simtras.livejournal.com]

I thought the PC thing to say, when you didn't know the gender of the person, was not "their", which is grammatically incorrect, but "his or her". Wordy, yes, but also correct. Anyway, if any of you went to Ben Franklin Jr. High School, there is a little trick to help you remember exactly which plural pronouns take plural verbs. Instead of saying Ben Franklin Jr. High, you have to say Ben Franklin Middle School. So you get the mnemonic BFMS, which stands for:
B - Both
F - Few
M - Most
S - Several.
These all are the only ones that take plural verbs. E.g. "When it comes to the sexes, both are equal. Few acknowledge minor differences between the two. Most accept the major differences. Several get married."

Wow, what a weird paragraph, but you get the idea.

[amberica.livejournal.com]

But that's just the thing - the idea that "their" is gramatically incorrect is, well, incorrect! (According to the years of obsessive research done by my Pop, anyway.)

Same thing with the rule that you can't end a sentence with a preposition. The only reason we have this "rule" is that it is not allowed in Latinam (Eheu! O me miserum!) There were a couple guys many years ago who literally wrote THE book on grammar, and they decided that it should also be a rule in English, which is not the same type of language at all! So it doesn't really make sense...

But yeah, "his or her" is correct, but only since the women's lib. "Their" has apparently been correct for hundreds of years, even if High School English Teachers don't quite get "why". I guess the natural rule of language is that if a pattern is used for long enough, and by enough people, it is "correct".