Every now and then, somebody asks me whether the bolded words in the following sentences are correct.
1. “Every creed and race find an equal place.”
2. “Everybody has to pick up their bed and walk.”
3. “Everybody has to pick up his bed and walk.”
4. “Each person is the recipient of the accumulated culture of the generations which have preceded him.”
5. “The user has to take responsibility for parking his or her car in this carpark.”
For avoidance of unnecessary confusion, I treat the register in which they are produced as Standard English, and I note immediately that it is not obvious whether they are correct or not. I treat the opportunity as a teaching moment, so allow me to provide brief analyses of each of them.
Sentence 1 features a coordinated subject composed of two nouns “creed” and “race” joined by the conjunction “and”. Some people would argue that the conjunction pluralises the subject and that therefore the verb “find” is legitimately in its plural form, that is, bare, unanalysed, uninflected. But I would propose that the coordinated subject contains the distributive pronoun “Every”, which individuates the two nouns. “Every” individuates “race” even though it is neither audible nor visible in the sentence; the language uses a shortcut by making it physically absent. And because it individuates the two nouns, it selects the 3rd person singular form of the verb–finds.
Sentence 2 has the subject “Everybody”, which is notionally plural but grammatically singular, selecting the plural pronominal adjective their to co-reference with. Some would argue that since “Everybody” is grammatically singular, as “has” suggests (I don’t hear anybody saying “Everybody have” in Standard English), then their should give way to “his”. But in that case, they would be opening themselves to the charge of sexism. Why not “her”?
I would argue instead that, since “Everybody” is notionally both plural and gender-unspecific, it is more progressive to go the way of their, which specifically satisfies our need for gender inclusivity and for a singular pronominal anaphor for “Everybody”. (An anaphor here is an item that refers back to a word it stands for.) There is nothing in the grammar that is either a plural masculine or feminine pronoun, so singularising their is precisely the way to go, which is where the grammar goes.
Sentence 3 exchanges their in the second for his. Those for whom his is an acceptable anaphor for “Everybody” are automatically accepting the accusation that they are sexist in their pronominal choice. The reason is that, if “Everybody” includes females, which it must, then the pronominal anaphor in the sentence cannot be his.
The same argument holds for him in sentence 4. Pronominal him is an anaphor for “Each person”, which must include males and females, so it would be clearly sexist to use it in that way. The pronominal form their would be a handy alternative–on both notional and grammatical grounds.
Sentence 5 is perhaps the most famous example of some users of Standard English avoiding the use of “they” or “their” in favour of “his or her”. They prefer to use the clearly awkward “his or her” when the subject is singular, e.g., “The user” and “A user”. If the subject was plural, such as “Users” and “The users”, then they would be happy and unbothered to use “their” and “they” as the anaphor.
In other words, “they” and “their” are plural items and so are not to be used with singular subjects. On the one hand, the language is pushing us in a commonsense way, but on the other, the academic elites are imposing artificial restrictions on natural use.
Just to go back to the first sentence, “Every creed and race find an equal place”, whose subject-verb concord I asked DeepSeek to clarify for me before I began to write. Here’s part of DeepSeek’s answer:
“This is a classic case of compound subjects connected by “and.” I remember that usually “and” makes the subject plural, but “every” changes things … Let me mentally scan the grammar rules … When “every” precedes multiple singular nouns joined by “and,” it emphasises each item individually. So “every creed and race” means “every creed and every race” – implying two separate groups. That is why it takes a singular verb.”
DeepSeek talks of emphasis of the individual items and of a singular verb whereas I talk of the individuating function of “Every” and of THIRD PERSON singular nouns (and, consequently, third person singular verbs.)
I am sure that DeepSeek will be able to help clear up other syntactic matters for those who want to know more.
Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development, and politics in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s. He has also written thousands of columns for all the major newspapers in the country. He can be reached at jaywinster@gmail.com