Writing & Grammar: Correct Uses of Their

by Jennie Ruby  

1. Everyone All players must bring their own golf clubs to the tournament.
2. Each of the tourists has their a ticket in their hand.
3. Every one of the participants had their a certificate by the end of the course.
4. Anyone can win their a dream vacation in this drawing.
5. One of the instructors had their a degree in economics. 

And Kay Honaker provides these alternative correct answers:

1. You must bring your own golf clubs to the tournament.
2. All of the tourists have their tickets in their hands.
3. All of the participants had their certificates by the end of the course.
4. You can win your dream vacation in this drawing!
5. One of the instructors holds a degree in economics.

Other correct answers came from Kenny Rankin and Toni Wills. The point of this challenge was, of course, that there are multiple solutions to handling this common agreement problem. Here are eight of them.

Problem examples:

Each employee must submit their timesheet by Friday.

Every attorney in the firm has given us their advice.

1. Use plural

All employees must submit their timesheets by Friday.

All of the attorneys have given us their advice.

2. Delete the possessive pronoun

Every attorney in the firm has given us advice.

3. Substitute a or the for their

Each employee must submit a timesheet by Friday.

4. Use passive

All timesheets must be submitted by Friday.

5. Use second person

You must submit your timesheet by Friday.

6. Use first person

We must have all timesheets in by Friday.

We have received advice from every attorney in the firm.

7. Use his or her

Each employee must submit his or her timesheet by Friday.

Every attorney in the firm has given us his or her advice.

8. Use their as a singular generic possessive

Each employee must submit their timesheet by Friday.

Every attorney in the firm has given us their advice.

Caution: number 8 is not considered correct in formal writing.

***

This Week's Challenge: Punctuate this paragraph

Until very recently the only way you could distribute multimedia files over the Web was by using external files as described in the first half of this chapter. In recent months however both Netscape and Microsoft have made many interesting steps toward integrating multimedia more closely into Web pages either through the use of new HTML tags through advanced capabilities such as Java or through the use of plug-ins help applications that are more closely integrated with the browser and with files reviewed within that browser.

–From Teach Yourself Web 
Publishing with HTML 3.2 by Laura Lemay

***