English Language & Usage Asked by user53578878979080099421313131 on April 7, 2021
Should I say
Some people use the word “flat” to describe their phone when its battery is dead.
or
Some people use the word “flat” to describe their phones when their batteries are dead. (I wanted to use “their” here to refer to the phone’s instead of the people’s)
or
Some people use the word “flat” to describe their phones when their battery is dead. (I wanted to use “their” here to refer to the phone’s instead of the people’s)
Which one is grammatically correct and why?
From the comments, it appears that you want to refer to 'some people' for which the pronoun is obviously their) and 'their phones', but use a singular battery. Put like that, it is clear that you will have to rephrase, since there is no correct pronoun for both singular battery and plural phones. Your first example is common, but you should be aware that 'singular they', though commonly used, is also commonly criticised. (e.g. here and here).
Your second is grammatical, but if there is a difference between 'the batteries belonging to the phones' and 'the batteries belonging to the people' (do you really think so?), then it is ambiguous, and cannot be rescued without changing the sentence: when the battery is dead or ...to describe phones with dead batteries would be common rephrasings.
Your third is simply bad English (mixing singular and plural), unless, unusually, all the phones (or, of course, all the people) share one battery.
Correct answer by Tim Lymington on April 7, 2021
The second example sentence should read "...describe their phones when the batteries are dead" and in the third, obviously, "...describe their phone (no 's') when the battery is dead. Otherwise it sounds as if you're saying the owner of the phone/s has a dead battery himself - 'their' is used to indicate possessive (the owner of the phone) 'the' refers to the battery within the phone, no possessive required.
Answered by bamboo on April 7, 2021
This is a typical instance of poor sentence construction in that the singular is used to artificially emphasise a point which then leaves a requirement for a common-gender personal pronoun singular which we don't have in English. Example - "Every child should drink their milk" Or worse - "A suicide bomber blew themselves up....."
Answered by Ian Hickling on April 7, 2021
Get help from others!
Recent Answers
Recent Questions
© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP