Omari's Blog

Call the grammar police.

"Nobody" is singular, right? So says this page, anyway; many other sources say the same thing.

So I cringe a bit when I see sentences such as "Nobody in America should be fired because they're gay." Who said that? The President of the United States. For the sentence to be consistent, shouldn't it read "Nobody in America should be fired because she is gay"?

However, the introductory sections of most dictionaries will tell you that the dictionary attempts to reflect the usage patterns of educated speakers of English. So what happens when a president who is widely renowned for being a masterful speaker uses botched grammar such as this? Perhaps it finally becomes acceptable?

Could this sentence be modified to make the subject plural, thus avoiding the touchy issue of gender-specific pronouns? "People in America shouldn't be fired because they are gay"? This raises the question of whether "people" is singular or plural! I thought it is plural...but then again, most people seem to think "nobody" is plural...

posted at: 19:00 | path: / | permanent link to this entry