[projectaon] Re: Editor's Companion Submission

  • From: "David Davis" <feline1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:18:41 -0000

There are no *official* rules of English grammar whatsoever /grins/
there is only common practice and precedent.

Using "their" here is a fairly commonplace phrasing.
One way to rationalise it is that imagine the sentence with a person's name instead: you would write ".but you sense that John is trapped within. You can almost hear their desperate cries for release."
----- Original Message ----- From: "Benjamin I Krefetz" <krefetz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <ch.honza@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 5:51 PM
Subject: [projectaon] Re: Editor's Companion Submission




On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, pamail.cgi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


The following was sent from the Editor's Companion form
  From: Jan Charv?t <ch.honza@xxxxxxxxxx>
  Date: 13:08:14 on Thursday, January 28, 2010
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(er) 03tcok 244: their desperate cries -> its desperate cries

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Oooh. This is an interesting one. The antecedent is "someone or something". If "someone" is the more important part of the antecedent, it should be left as-is, but if "something" is the more important part, it should be changed to "its".
My gut instinct is to make agreement with "someone" and leave as-is, but only because "someone" comes first. Is there an official rule of English grammar on this? 

Ben

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