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  • IS THERE A GRAMMARIAN

    Filed at 11:47 pm under by dcobranchi

    IS THERE A GRAMMARIAN IN THE HOUSE? I read the following paragraph in an NEA email of hints and tips:

    To keep notes on my students – observations, behaviors and assessments I have a clipboard with a full sheet of mailing labels. I jot the date, the student’s initials and then record my observations on one label. The size of the label keeps the observations brief. The full page of labels allows me to record observations for all students on the same page. At the end of the day, or more likely once a week, I peel off the labels and paste them into a loose-leaf notebook where each student has their own page (emphasis added).

    Now, I realize that “each” is singular and “their” is, of course, plural. When I learned grammar, the correct version would have been “each student has his own page.” That would now be termed sexist and “his” would be replaced with “his/her.” To any grammarians out there, has “their” become an accepted alternative to the awkawrd “his/her” construct? Is there another elegant solution that I have missed?

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