Of Good English and All!

The rules of English grammar clearly indicate that there should be agreement between all the components of a sentence—this is called concord

I have been monitoring public discussions in Ghana, and for some time now, there has been much public discourse concerning the English language. From the example of the President of the Republic of Ghana, to counter-arguments that flaws are a part of every speaker, many Ghanaians have, in one way or another, contributed to this discussion about the English language.

I would like to, in this paper, bring up certain aspects of the English language that need serious and urgent attention. I would be discussing concord (subject—verb agreement) in English with emphasis on the use of pronouns like everyone, everybody, each person, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, and nobody.

The rules of English grammar clearly indicate that there should be agreement between all the components of a sentence—this is called concord. Concord in English means that singular subjects take on singular verbs, pronouns and nouns in the sentence, just as plural subjects take on plural verbs, pronouns and nouns. To illustrate this, consider these examples:

“Bob wears a blue shirt to school.” In this sentence, “Bob” is the singular subject and thus takes on a singular verb “wears” and the singular noun “shirt”.

“The school boys wear blue shirts to school.” In this sentence, “the school boys” represent the plural subject of the sentence and thus take on the plural verb “wear” and plural noun “shirts”.

Words like everyone, everybody, each person, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, and nobody are pronouns — singular pronouns for that matter. This is very evident in the following correct uses of the words:

“ “Everyone knows him.”
“Someone is in the room.”
“Is there anybody at the door?”
There is nobody at the door.”

Sadly, recent uses of these words have disregarded the rules governing English grammar and have resorted to their rules — which indeed are no rules at all. What is even more disturbing is that trusted English dictionaries have also disregarded the rules of English and gone the way of the masses. For example, in the Oxford Student's Dictionary of Current English (1984, edited by A. S. Hornby), the entry “nobody” is said to be a singular pronoun with the plural form as “nobodies”. However, in using this entry in a sentence, the dictionary wrongly has: “Nobody could find their luggage” (emphasis mine).

A commercial by one of Ghana's leading telecommunication companies running on both radio and television stations ends with the sentence: “call everyone. . . and make their day.” This sentence is also grammatically incorrect because “everyone” is a singular pronoun and as such should take on singular verbs and pronouns. The sentence should thus have read: “call everyone and make his/her day.”

To better illustrate my point, let us consider this example: “everybody were here yesterday.” I believe that you would agree with me that the above sentence is grammatically incorrect. The correct form should read: “everybody was here yesterday.” This clearly shows that “everybody” and all the other pronouns being considered in this paper are singular pronouns and should take on, in whatever form they are used, singular parts of speech.

I have often wondered about the origin of this trend of growing disregard for the rules of English grammar. I can readily think about one possible source of this trend. Although the words listed above are gender-neutral, speakers in times past generally used masculine words to represent both genders. For example, it was generally accepted as correct in times past to say: “everyone should cast his vote wisely.” However, with growing sensitivity towards gender issues, English speakers shifted to saying, for example: “everyone should cast his/her vote wisely.” But the continuous use of his/her or he/she often makes a mouthful for speakers of the language thus certain people moved to using plural pronouns like “they” and “their” as seen in the wrong examples listed above. But the use of plural pronouns is not justified because the rules of concord suggest that singular subjects take on singular verbs and singular pronouns.

Again, to make the argument in support of the use of “their” in place of “his/her” on the grounds that “their” represents both “his” and “her” is unjustifiable because the “or” used in “his/her” is an “exclusive or” — this is to say that no individual can be both male and female, thus using “their” in such instances contravenes both the rules of English grammar and the rules of logic.

I suggest that English speakers who want to avoid constant repetition of “his/her” use plural gender-neutral words like “all” and “people”. So the example in the Oxford Student's Dictionary of Current English (1984, edited by A. S. Hornby) may have read: “All the people could not find their luggage.”

To conclude, I would like to invite comments from the public with regards to the points I have raised. I also want to see more public discussion and input to direct the future of the English language.

Credit: Darko-Boateng_Arden
[Email: [email protected]
Of Good English and All!