by Eva van Loon

Everyone has their dream. Right? Or wrong?

In “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” I suggested America’s materialism, its obsession with possessions, likely kicked off the constant use of their and other possessives to the point where Englese, the language most of us normally speak, usually uses their to refer to a single person.

The above sentence sounds fine in Englese. It’s spoken on CBC a dozen times a day—so it must be right! Strict SE (Standard English) speakers, however, would complain, “That, my dear sir, is a number error, a variety of pronoun-reference error. Everyone is singular, while their is plural. Where did the extra people suddenly come from? What’s with the clones?”

Naturally the Grammar Gremlin, in its daily struggle to remain untainted by Englese, goes “Bzzt! Bzzt!” whenever the their clones appear on tax-supported public media.
I promised to divulge a hitherto secret theory about how this phenomenon came about. Cherchez la femme. Without Women’s Liberation, the clones never would have happened.

Understand that SE grammar books in the Sixties corrected that sentence to read Everyone has his dream.

Some of us girl hippies fretted over the constant use of the masculine gender. We felt left out. When given the brush-off with a supercilious, “Of course the masculine pronoun includes the feminine, silly!” we became more affronted rather than less. Somehow, his didn’t seem to fit feminine dreams, or anything feminine, for that matter. Would you say Everyone has his sexual preferences, for example? Hardly!

The trouble with grammar books is that they invariably tell you only how to do it right according to SE standards. They never tell you how to make the switch from Englese to SE, because they’re blind to the existence of Englese. The best of them might suggest, in the case of our sentence, to change it thus: Everyone has his or her dream.

Problem solved, right? Wrong! As if we will spout this awkward but inclusive new phrase, hizzorhurr, instead of the quicker and easier their, just to avoid insulting a few old hippy broads and bra-burning feminists!
If SE would only take off its blinkers and step back from possession obsession! The solutions are easy once you drop the focus on gender-political correctness:

Everyone has a dream.(Skip the possessive.)
All people have (their) dreams.(Pluralise the whole thing.)
Each has one’s own dream.(If you must possess, use one, the pronoun surprise.)

Is this cloning of pronouns important? You bet! Englese may be flourishing in our speech, but we are expected to write, most of the time, in SE. Once the number error creeps into official language tools–like laws, for example–vagueness and confusion sneak inside the door right on the number error’s tail.

So why not clean out the obsession with possession in speech as well? Whenever you feel that naughty pronoun their sneaking up your throat, quick! Swat it! Switch it!
Aahh! Grammar Gremlin happy now.

Englese won’t mind—a living language just keeps on growing those clones.