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From: lee@dsi1.UUCP (Lee Hagerty)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Grammar and Spelling on the Net
Message-ID: <528@dsi1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 13:34:27 EST
Article-I.D.: dsi1.528
Posted: Wed Mar  5 13:34:27 1986
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Organization: Dynamic Systems, Inc., Arlington VA
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In article <2867@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes:
>I am shocked and appalled by the objections raised to sentences
>such as:
>
>	"Each person does as they think best."
>
>This is not ungrammatical, wrong, in error, mistaken, illiterate,
>or otherwise stupid.  Those of you who believe otherwise should
>read my previous posting (a quote of respectable texts on
>the English language, including the OED).

I didn't see your previous postings.  If I had, I would still consider
your example sentence to be wrong.  I am one of those who believes that
pronouns must agree with their antecedents, or that a pronoun agrees with
its antecedent.  I understand that "they" has been accepted in some
circles when referring to an indefinite third-person singular antecedent.
However, this can lead to unclear writing.  "Each person does as they
think (collectively) best" or "each person does as they think
(individually) best"--which one is meant in your example?

Lee